


Sunspots

by ellebelle9



Category: American Horror Story, American Horror Story: Apocalypse
Genre: Alternate Universe, Canon-Typical Violence, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, Everything Hurts and I'm Dying, F/M, Implied/Referenced Self-Harm, Michael trains with the coven AU, big hades & persephone vibes, dumb soft teenagers in love, everything was beautiful and nothing hurt, kinda slow burn, major character death followed by major character resurrection, michael langdon is an actual feline who leaves terrible gifts, might get smutty???, millory, oops it got smutty, side foxxay, slight animal horror, this will have a happy ending if it kills me
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-25
Updated: 2019-02-28
Packaged: 2019-08-29 01:48:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 29
Words: 55,433
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16734732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ellebelle9/pseuds/ellebelle9
Summary: The tall, blonde boy stepped forward and held out a hand for her to shake. He had a cordial smile and eyes that were shockingly blue.“Michael Langdon,” he offered politely. Something deep in Mallory’s chest fluttered and screamed to back away.She did not want to touch him, she felt as if the earth might end if she did.(Alternate Universe where the warlocks agree to send Michael to Robichaux to train under Cordelia. Michael meets Mallory and is set on a different path.)





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> **Hi y'all.  
> **   
>  **So I never got over seeing Michael in his warlock student costume and really wished they could have mixed that aesthetic with Robichaux. So here's some completely indulgent rubbish about Michael getting to study magic at Robichaux with some Mallory romance in the middle because how can I not. **  
> ****
> 
> ****I don't really know where I'm going with this, there might be smut, there might be plot, who knows! ********

Cordelia had agreed to take the boy from the warlocks and train him.

Upon consultation with Myrtle, it seemed a somewhat wise option in their dwindling few. To keep their friends close but enemies closer - the warlocks always fell somewhere in between.

But Michael was different. He was the most powerful either faction had seen since well before their time. And Cordelia knew by the way her bones ached when he was near that her time was running out.

She invited them to Robichaux as a formality, and arranged that the boy would be trained with the other young witches. Naturally, this offended the warlocks’ fragile male egos, but there was no question that the witches’ power was unparalleled. Michael would only grow stronger under her tutelage, and Ariel’s own thirst for power was not subtle.

Cordelia greeted their party on the street from their town cars, and once again took in the boy’s almost angelic appearance. That halo of blonde hair above that fortunate bone structure. He looked very smart in the Hawthorne uniform. She did not know his true feelings or indeed his intentions, if he had a grander scheme than Ariel or if he was only a regrettably gifted pawn in their manipulations. The future was uncertain, that much was known.

The albinos carried the warlocks’ luggage up the stairs and Cordelia began her formalities, and then the tour.

X

Mallory entered from the garden and brought the light in with her. She appeared as a silhouette until the sun reached behind her back and brought her into view. In one hand she had a bunch of herbs and the other was held gingerly aside and black with dirt.

She knew from that moment when she stepped inside and saw the men that something was very wrong. The boy stood amongst two other men, warlocks at a guess, and they each fawned over him. Cordelia walked ahead, hands clasped and smile tight as she showed them around and introduced the younger man to the witches.

So this was the prodigy who would usurp their Supreme. Immediately Mallory’s hackles raised and she prepared for the worst as they walked further into the kitchen. With no escape, Cordelia gestured to Mallory.

“… and this is Mallory. She is one of our brightest stars here.”

The tall, blonde boy stepped forward and held out a hand for her to shake. He had a cordial smile and eyes that were shockingly blue.

“Michael Langdon,” he offered politely. Something deep in Mallory’s chest fluttered and screamed to back away. Cordelia looked at her pointedly. The older warlocks watched curiously at their interaction, as if anything the young man did was holy.

She did not want to touch him, she felt as if the earth might end if she did.

“My hand is dirty, sorry.”

Mallory took the bunch of herbs between both hands to keep them well out of reach. The young man grimaced and returned his hand behind his back. Cordelia looked disappointed but somehow also a little bit impressed with her daring.

“It’s nice to meet you.” Mallory managed to gasp out, and took Cordelia’s nod as an exit.

Behind her, those blue eyes watched her go.

X

As the only young man in a house full of women, it was clear he was an anomaly. They did nothing to avoid treating him as such as if this imposition were an actual honour and not an unsettling intrusion. Cordelia had organised a grand dinner to celebrate his arrival. At their table sat only the most revered witches and their new guest.

Zoe impressed him more than he wanted to voice. She carried herself as if her backbone was structured from her own immovable self-discipline. If it hadn’t been for him, Michael could see she was the perfect echo of Cordelia, and a worthy new Supreme.

Queenie and Madison he was already acquainted with. He found Madison in equal parts unbearable and amusing. In each other they could recognise their arrogance born of power bigger than their bodies could contain. Queenie gave off such a ‘don’t-fuck-with-me’ vibe that she inspired reluctant admiration. And her voodoo power was especially fascinating.

The other girl, though.

Mallory.

She didn’t eat. Even though when he had tried to introduce himself she had been headed to the kitchen with the herbs that dressed the very dinner now in front of them. A gilded crown rested in her hair and dazzled his eyes whenever he glanced her way. She wore an elegantly cut dress in the witches’ characteristic black. There wasn’t anything about her appearance that had particularly drawn him in, though she was beautiful. Nor was it the way she clearly rejected his presence in their home, god knows he knew the taste of that deepest cut. Disgust wasn’t new to him, it shouldn’t have bothered him.

No, it was the way her power was different to the others. To his own.

Michael had always recognised his magic as pulled from the endless void inside. Nothing could reach that shadow, but at the same time he was able to draw from it to create or destroy. It was a part of him, deeply entwined in his ribs, that moved organically with each breath.

Mallory’s power was different. It was ethereal. Her power was bright white and came from somewhere less poisonous than his own. It reflected in the weightless way she moved, as if she were unused to taking up space in this world, as if something floated overhead waiting to rend her apart.

Something primal in him wanted her. In some way that would allow him to rip her body apart and reach that power. Study it, own it and use it.

Mallory met his eyes without flinching and he realised he had been staring. Michael smiled apologetically but she did not drop her gaze even once. Eventually, he turned away and felt something like shame crawl down his throat. He felt acutely that he should not be allowed to look at something as pure as her.

Being invited to stay with the witches wasn’t exactly in the plan he and Ms Mead had invented. But he was open to improvisation. And this promised to be interesting.

He couldn’t wait to begin his studies at Robichaux.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **helloooo thanks for reading and commenting and kudosing. It makes my day! **  
> ****  
>  **for some reason I'm now going with present tense... just roll with it my dudes **  
> ****  
> ****Enjoy! ********

Mallory floats.

It is quiet in the abyss. The deep blue around her is infinite and she is unafraid.

She drifts.

The scene changes and Mallory trails a hand along the banister at Robichaux. In the next moment she is outside, removing a dead leaf from her geranium plant in the light of a full moon. And the next she is by the piano and Cordelia is speaking to her, but she cannot hear a word.

She follows the dream as it spirals, taking each moment in peacefully.

In the pitch black of her bedroom she is weighed down pleasantly in the soft sheets. Above her, a figure with long hair and long fingers becomes acquainted with her. Mallory presses hands to a flat chest and runs her fingers over the indents between ribs. The figure inhales and exhales slowly and she feels it on the skin of her chest. An eternity passes and he presses down further, almost crushing her with his warm weight. She feels safe, she feels like she trusts him.

And then, the softest kiss to the skin of her throat and a wanting pulls hard in her abdomen.

Then she is awake. And alone. Eyes open and finding only the ceiling above. The gauzy curtains stir in the humid morning air. The room is white like the rest of the house, but sparsely decorated with Mallory’s own style. This has been her home for years now and it reflects her in the fairy lights strung artfully, the abstract artworks and the trinkets she has collected herself and from friends. She keeps endless amounts of potted plants. She cannot get enough green, living things to surround her.

The dream stays with Mallory for moments too long as she finds the energy to get up. She has never wanted someone as badly as she had just then, and the strength of the feeling terrifies her a little. She can only imagine what kind of change in her life has brought these new dreamscapes on. Mallory shakes her head hard as if to dismiss the rising thoughts but they come anyway. She thinks of golden hair. She thinks of his mouth.

She ghosts her hand over her underwear, underneath her night gown and is ashamed to find wetness there. Pulling her hand back like she has been burned, she throws the covers away and gets ready to start her day, irritated and confused.

X

It doesn’t get better.

Michael settles in well enough. He is given a plain room and he has nothing with him apart from his warlock uniforms so it remains blank and white like untouched canvas. A part of him thinks that he must be so broken that he cannot even have a personality to make a place look like he belongs there. Another part is proud that he doesn’t need trivial things like decoration to survive. His contradictions do not resolve themselves.

The girls are enamoured with him. The younger witches particularly. They act as if they have never been within ten feet of a boy, hiding behind doorways, whispering and giggling.

Sometimes he humours them, sometimes not.

Most of them are quite nice and all fairly talented, not including the calorie counter who is ridiculed in an adoring kind of way. They do not have a prescribed uniform like the warlocks, apart from wearing monochromatic colours and jewellery.

The lessons begin fairly soon, and he hates to admit that he does learn quite a lot.

Although he himself knows he is not just a warlock he finds the history fascinating. And trying new powers is always exciting, especially when he proves again and again to be the best.

They study the history of magic and witchcraft, albeit with a heavy emphasis on the female side of it. Conjuration and telekinesis are as easy as breathing to him, and glamours and charms are almost second nature. Cordelia finds increasingly difficult challenges for him in the way of divination, transmutation and concilium. She is staying away from descensum, and he hasn’t pushed as to why. Rescuing Misty Day had drained his energy incredibly fast and left him weakened, needing to recover.

And he struggles with alchemy.

Michael isn’t a particularly patient person, but that is not the issue. Creating potions doesn’t require any sort of innate talent, it’s basically science. And it’s frustrating.

But that’s not the real issue either. He knows if he applied himself he could master it like most other magical talents.

It’s the girl. Mallory.

She is still learning herself, but she is not in all of his classes. Just enough to keep him distracted. And alchemy is the worst. This subject is her domain and everyone knows it. She maintains the garden outside and is responsible for keeping the ingredients fresh and stocked. Her talent is considerable and he’s not the only one entranced by her when she’s in her element. His hands have created fire and ruin yet not blistered, but the burners in the room have caught him more times than he can count. It’s getting embarrassing.

Sometimes lying awake at night he thinks about how he could casually ask her for help with the work to start a conversation. Maybe when she moves around the room with ease, snipping plant samples and selecting jars with barely a glance at the labels. Sometimes she ties her hair up and he sees the nape of her neck. It’s almost a religious experience.

But mostly, Mallory ignores him.

They’ve not spoken since that first day. Every time she looks his way it seems to ignite something murderous in her gaze. And he doesn’t know what to do about it. There’s something unshakeable in his desire to know her.

He’s heard of her gift. The undoing of wounds. Reversing time. Coco, the friendliest of the ‘elite’ witches group told him of the time Mallory saved her life by cutting open her throat.

It’s not the cutting of throats he’s used to.

Across the room she is radiant, grinding together herbs she has grown herself in a mortar and pestle. She studiously avoids his stare though she must feel it based on the aggressive way she crushes the leaves.

He is going to fix this. He’ll make it better.

X

One word for Madison’s closet is impressive, another is excessive.

Mallory sorts through a mess of shoes clustered beneath the hanging dresses.

“What colour?”

“Black, duh.”

Mallory sighs, they’re mostly all black given their dress code. She chooses a few random, lethal-looking pairs and brings them out to where Madison is turning in front of the mirror.

“Can you zip me up?”

“Yeah.” It’s a Friday night and although she isn’t going out with her it’s still fun to help Madison dress up. Mallory hasn’t known Madison very long, but she’s got to admire a girl that went to hell and back and still has that much attitude.

The dress is tight and downright stunning, flattering all the right parts. Mallory wouldn’t dream of wearing some of the things Madison wears, if only because the other girl’s figure could look good in anything but that Madison also doesn’t carry her insecurity in her appearance like the rest of them.

And fuck those shoes, honestly.

Madison takes her hand as she steps into a towering pair of stilettos.

“What’s up with you, lately?”

Mallory looks up surprised.

“What do you mean?”

“You’ve been weird since Michael turned up. I mean, yeah he’s a warlock and that is gross in itself. But I kind of like him.”

“W-why?” She tries not to stutter. She feels called out, inexplicably guilty.

“Well, he’s fucking hot.”

“So? That doesn’t make him a good person.”

Madison gives her such a look that she can’t help but smirk. She steps down from the shoes and takes another pair. Mallory takes the rejects back to the cupboard and tries to tidy them a bit to avoid this conversation.

“It’s pretty obvious you hate his guts.”

Mallory drops a shoe with a clatter and winces.

“It’s not… I mean, I don’t.”

“You really fucking do.”

Mallory thumps her head on the doorjamb and takes a deep breath.

“How are you okay with him being here?” It explodes out of her all at once. “He’s making Delia worse. He’s killing her. I can’t admire him for that. No matter how talented he is.” She says, losing her voice towards the end.

“It’s not his fault. Zoe would have done the same thing, but you wouldn’t hate her for that.”

Mallory comes back out, holding a coat to her chest like it’s going to save her from this hard truth. There’s something sad growing in her heart based on this revelation that she would lose Cordelia no matter what. She shouldn’t blame Michael for his gifts, for what he can’t control.

“Or you could just hatefuck him and get it over with.”

Mallory drops the coat and gapes in horror.

“Madison!”

She slides earrings in with ease and gives Mallory a devilish grin. Mallory can feel her cheeks burning hotter than fire. Madison takes the coat from the floor, shakes her head and goes to get another one.

“The poor guy can tell is all. He’s asked a couple times what he’s done to piss you off. I’m running out of ideas too.”

Mallory feels that sadness blooming like flowers under her collarbones.

“Okay, I’ll try and be nice.”

Madison comes out looking fabulous and kisses her cheek.

“Bye, doll!”

“Have a good night, Madi. You look great.”

After Madison leaves, Mallory goes down the hall in a daze. She trails the banister like she did in her dream just to be novel and then inevitably tries not to think of where the dream went from there.

Perhaps she had been unfair. Perhaps an apology was due, or at the least a civil word. Or maybe she could start with just not glaring.

She’s killing that sadness bloom with the positive fantasies of kindness. She keeps it up a while, until she gets to her bedroom door.

And finds the mouse nailed to it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **soooooooooooo Michael you done did it, you fucked up boi**
> 
> **Is this a flirtation or an insult........ you tell me your theories........**
> 
> **Apologies again for any inconsistency in plot (can you blame me it's hard to keep track of what the fuck is going on in any season lol) and if Madison is a bit OOC... I tried... she's fun to write though ^_^**
> 
> **also I totally googled hogwarts classes and AHS seven wonders to figure out what the heck they actually do at Robichaux........... suggestions welcome!**
> 
> **Will try and get another chapter out next weekend, thanks again for reading, leave me some love xxxx ******


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Okay so I lied. I know I said I would update next weekend but the response from you guys has been so amazing, I tapped this out in like an hour so totally unedited soz**
> 
> **Seriously though, I get happy tears reading your comments. I've never been so excited to get emails IN MY LIFE.**
> 
> **Also I'm fully intending on responding to your comments, but I figured you'd appreciate a chapter more so here u go.**
> 
> **Special shoutout to Bloody_Mirror for reminding me the warlock school actually does have a name LOL ******

The warlocks did not loosen their grasp so quickly.

As part of their arrangement with Cordelia, it was mandatory for Michael to schedule meetings with them to update on his progress. Conveniently, this was done without leaving either of their respective schools.

Instead they used projection. As Michael was the most advanced it was mostly through his power that they could create a communication channel. Michael would project his image to speak with the warlocks on the other side, and remain in a passive trance in New Orleans.

Hawthorne hadn’t changed, each time he met Ariel and sometimes either one or more of his colleagues in the Grand Chancellor’s office. It was all very formal, boring as hell and only gave Michael a slight headache from the power it required to project over such distance. Less and less as his power grew. After running through his normal report on each subject and his advancement, Ariel surprised him by asking,

“How is Cordelia?”

Michael looked up in surprise.

“She’s been very kind. I’m learning a lot from her. Cordelia tries to make more difficult challenges for me to complete.”

“No, Michael. I meant her health. Is she still deteriorating?”

Cordelia was putting on a remarkable front if she was. Michael hadn’t even noticed any changes in her demeanour from the powerful Supreme she always proved herself to be.

“What do you mean?”

“Michael,” Ariel began, rising from his side of the desk to take the seat beside the younger warlock. “When the new Supreme rises, or the Alpha in our case… the old one must perish. It is a slow, painful process. The stronger you grow, the weaker she becomes.”

Michael swallowed and fought to keep the frown from his face. So he was killing Cordelia with each step closer to his ascension. It made sense of course, there could not be two Supremes and so neither a Supreme or Alpha could coexist.

Cordelia had been a mentor who had accepted him despite what it could mean for her. But he hadn’t noticed her declining health. Either this meant that she was remaining strong and he was not the next Supreme, or that he had not been making any true advancement in his studies.

He wondered which was worse to tell Ariel.

“I haven’t noticed.” He said, readjusting his necktie, trying to breathe a little easier.

Predictably, Ariel was taken aback. Disappointment edged onto his face and he smiled weakly.

“Well. We’ll have to do something about that, don’t you think?”

Uncertainty kept him silent. He scrambled to think of what Ms Mead would tell him to do.

“Same time next week, Michael. Have a good night.”

He didn’t waste any time disappearing.

Slowly opening his eyes revealed the comforting blankness of his dorm at Robichaux. The conversation had left him uneasy, he knew Ariel was planning something and he knew that he would be the one to carry out whatever he decided.

He really wished he could talk to Ms Mead.

It was getting late, Michael removed his tie and blazer and was about to undress when two sharp raps sounded at his door.

He fought a smile… could it be?

X

Opening the door the first thing he noticed was that she was upset. Eyes red-rimmed and a deadly grimace gracing that lovely mouth.

She held the mouse in her hands, still impaled, with fingers red and bleeding. She had pulled the spike out from the door with her fingernails.

“Mallory…” He said hoarsely. Whatever brief flicker of hope he had felt plummeted down so fast he felt vertigo. She swallowed visibly, trying to find the words past her rage.

“Did you put this on my door?”

Michael bit his tongue from asking _did you not like it?_ Silence seemed the best course. He’d not seen anger this intense since Constance kicked him out and the déjà vu was making him blink hard.

“Did you. Put this. On my door.”

“Yes.”

Mallory’s thumbs unconsciously stroked the blood-matted fur. There was blood caked in the lines of her hands and on her rings.

“Is this some kind of sick joke?” Her voice was leaving her and she was starting to shake.

“No… No! Mallory, I didn’t mean…”

He cupped his hands and put them under hers to take the mouse delicately from her trembling fingers. He was hyperfixating, he should have rolled up the cuffs of his sleeves, she should have used a hammer to remove the nail, why did she use her hands? Is that her blood or the animals?

“I’m sorry…” Michael gasped. “I thought… I thought you would like it…”

She couldn’t seem to lower her hands even though they were empty.

“Why would I like that?” Tears filled her eyes and her voice was starting to shake. “Why would you leave something dead nailed to my door, Michael?”

“I’d heard of your gift. How you heal things. You undo wounds. I thought… I thought you would like it, to bring it back.”

“It’s too late. It’s already dead. It needs Vitalum Vitalis.”

“Oh.”

There they stood. At the doorway between two rooms, with a mouse, a nail and too much blood. Mallory finally lowered her hands and set her jaw. Wiping away tears with the backs of her hands.

“You need to do it.”

He looked down at the corpse, wondering why on earth she felt so strongly about the creature.

“Michael, bring it back.”

He grasped the nail gently and slid it from the animal’s body. Grandma had liked these gifts, she had buried them and planted beautiful flowers above them until she had a whole collection. Some desperate, young part of him wanted to ask, _is this not normal?_

One short breath and some concentration and it twitched back to life. He cupped his hands to stop the mouse from wriggling away.

Mallory stepped closer and he looked at the crown of her head as she examined the creature, hovering a hand as if to stroke it and then changing her mind.

“Let’s take it outside. It needs to be set free.”

Together they descended the flights of stairs. The mouse was becoming warmer and it’s little heart was beating fast with fear.

It would have been easy to just crush it and throw it away, but this act seemed important to her, and he wanted to please her. He wanted it so badly. Especially after this enormous disaster.

Mallory unlocked and cracked open the kitchen door to exit out to the garden. Her followed her along the worn dirt path by the light of the moon until she stopped.

“Let it go.”

Michael crouched and finally let the mouse escape from his makeshift cage. It scurried away into the undergrowth and he saw her breathe a sigh of relief.

When he stood his heart began to beat faster. Where to go from here?

“Mallory, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“I wasn’t scared.” She shook her head sadly. “I thought you had done this because of the way I’ve been treating you. I thought you were doing it to be cruel.”

His expression was so earnestly appalled, when he spoke next there was no doubt he was genuine.

“No. No I didn’t mean that, it was a gift. But I understand now I think. Why you hate me. I mean, before this.” Mallory didn’t respond, trailing a hand along the swaying flowers by her fingertips as they started the walk back. “It’s because of Cordelia, because she’s ill.”

“She’s dying.”

Michael looked down at his shoes in shame. They entered the house and he waited as she locked the door.

“Because of me.”

“Maybe. But it’s not your fault. When the new Supreme rises, the old one must die. If it wasn't you, it would have been someone else.”

He didn’t know how to respond to that. They ascended the stairs in silence until it came time to part ways again in the hallway. She spoke softly to avoid disturbing the sleeping students.

“I don’t hate you, Michael. I'm sorry for how rude I've been.”

“I understand.” Michael wanted to step closer, to be nearer her light. But he still wasn’t sure what their dynamic was now. Mallory surprised him when she stepped forward and took his hand, getting blood on it.

“Please don’t do this again.”

“I won’t, Mallory. I’m sorry.”

Her eyes were soft, she wasn’t smiling but she wasn’t looking at him in revulsion either. He couldn’t comprehend how she had gone from hating him, to that look of intense rage earlier at his door, to forgiveness.

No one had ever looked at him like that.

“Goodnight, Michael.”

“Goodnight, Mallory.”

She stepped away from him, long black dress and bloodied hands and he watched her go. His hand singed from where she touched him.

It was a long time before he could move. Even longer before he slept.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I, use, so, many, commas.**
> 
> **This was probably totally sappy but I just couldn't leave them until they'd resolved their shit. More cuteness coming.**
> 
> **(Also if anyone is wondering, Cordelia is dying as per the show but she's also Sarah fucking Paulson so she's a BAMF who ain't gonna show no weakness, more on this later)**
> 
> **I haven't said it enough, you guys are awesome and I love you.**
> 
> **Let me know what you think x ******


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I am #struggling with this daily update nonsense but I can't stop**
> 
> **This is a short one, but I think you're gonna like it ;)))))**
> 
> **I promise I am trying to integrate a plot. These two idiots just want to kiss each other so bad they gotta get all these feels out first.**
> 
> **Again apologies for mistakes, I've noticed some inconsistencies between chapters because I can't even keep my own plots straight in my head. ******

Cordelia’s health grew worse every day. Myrtle tried her best to refrain from commenting but the way she watched her protégé was telling. It was a slow and steady decline, and each day brought on new aches and wounds that would not heal.

But there was still life inside their beloved Supreme, and surrounding her in the young witches.

Things in particular had changed between her Mallory and the warlock.

It is brisk outside so the younger witches are wrapped warmly as they tend the garden. Mallory has kept it remarkably well, and finds new varieties of flowers, herbs and trees to plant every day.

Her favourites are the roses, and they are magnificent.

“Do you suppose she will ever think she has _too many_?” Myrtle asked in her carefully metered way.

“No,” Cordelia said, happily watching Mallory shifting the potted flowers to get ready to plant them.

The boy trailed along behind her, laden with tools.

It was a strange friendship, if it was that at all. Their moods toward each other had seemingly turned overnight into something amicable, but also growing at such a slow, gentle rate.

It was noted in the way he always seemed to be near her now. In classes he would choose a closer seat and whisper things that she would reward him with a small smile for. She was also hopelessly forgetful and often arrived without a pen so he had taken it upon himself to always carry two nowadays.

Mallory knelt down in the dirt and he lowered himself beside her, carefully setting down her many tools and watched as she got to work preparing the soil.

He seemed very content to watch and even just to be near her. Mallory on the other hand put on a very indifferent front but Cordelia could tell she was moved by the attention. She smiled more.

“They’re a strange pair, don’t you think. It’s not a surprise really, she is so lovely.” Myrtle whispered, not eager to disturb the scene beneath them from where they stood on the veranda.

“Even if they are just friends, I think it is good for him. I- ” Cordelia broke off abruptly, unable to hold in a choking cough.

“Oh my dear, dear Cordelia!” Myrtle took her elbow and ushered her to a seat. She sent one of the passing witches for water and rubbed the Supreme’s back gently as they waited for the fit to pass. “Oh this is no good,” she cried, “you are too young. Damn that boy!”

“Hush,” Cordelia croaked, “it will be alright.”

Myrtle pressed her lips together sadly and shook her head.

They waited a few more breathless moments before Cordelia stood again, only bracing herself once.

“I’m alright.” She said, going back to the railing to watch the students in the afternoon sunlight.

Myrtle hovered at her back, but their attention both caught on the scene beneath them when Mallory lifted one of her new white roses close to Michael’s face.

He leaned forward to sniff it, beaming at her, but she frowned and moved it away towards his temple, carefully avoiding scratching him with the thorns.

In one dazzling moment the rose turned sky blue and Mallory nodded happily. The look on Michael’s face was priceless. The young witch turned away obliviously and began planting the flower with the colour of his eyes in the freshly turned dirt.

“There’s definitely something going on there.” Myrtle said redundantly.

The older witches turned to each other and smiled.

X

Sleep used to come easy to Michael.

He usually runs hot, but in the old, airy plantation-style house he maintains a fairly even temperature. But lately it’s been the dreams that plague him that make him weary in the morning.

Weary and wanting.

The dreams usually begin with the tactile imagining of what the lace of her dress would feel like in his hands, just the skirt like if he kneeled at her feet like a supplicant and clutched her gown. Sometimes he imagines holding her waist and the body heat beneath it.

Then Michael imagines looking down at her, towering from his height, her big, brown doe eyes looking up ever watchful and without judgement. Inevitably, he drifts down to her mouth. He wants to taste it, more than anything in the world. It keeps him up at night, it haunts him during the day. He tries not to stare during class, mainly because of the way his body reacts to these thoughts.

These, and others.

It’s becoming a habit. Just when he lays down to sleep he feels his body running even hotter, and he drifts a hand down to his boxers to grasp himself.

He just really wants to kiss her. The scenarios his mind can spin are more than enough to drive him mad with wanting.

Michael only feels a little guilty at first when he slips his hand under his boxers and strokes himself in a gentle rhythm. Thinking of her pretty, pink mouth and her little hands. Burying his face in his pillow muffles his groans as he speeds up his pace. Sometimes he imagines what she would think if she could see him. If she would bite her lip in that uncertain way of hers before coming closer. She would let him touch her, let him slide a hand under her lacy black skirts and touch in between her legs. He wonders how wet she would be.

His whole body seizes up, limb by limb and he comes with a quiet, strained voice, panting hard in his empty bed.

And then like a flood, horrific guilt and mortification. He feels dirty, disgusted with himself for tainting the thought of his angel in such a way. Ashamed of what she would think if she knew what he did, thinking of her.

Michael cleans himself up miserably, washing his hands more than he needs to so he can scrub away his sin. Then he lays down and cannot sleep for hours, and when he does it starts this cycle over again so he wakes up hard and aching in the morning.

It is torture, this love.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **...............................................**
> 
> **our boi is thirstyyyy**
> 
> **Thank you all so much for commenting and kudosing, I love you so much ;_; ******


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **you guuuuuys are too good to me! I post my chapters at night (us dang nightblogging Australians) so I always wake up to your comments and they literally make my whole day**
> 
> **I'm so sorry to give you this chapter after all your lovely comments, prepare for angst**
> 
> **good news is this is like twice the length of the last chapter**
> 
> **Also beware of some horror at the end, if you're squeamish. But let's be real if you watched AHS you'll be okay...**
> 
> **Without further ado.. ******

“I will never understand this.”

“Don’t be so dramatic,” Michael said, rolling onto his back on the library floor. Mallory lay sprawled out on her stomach and they were head to head with a spray of textbooks and notes around them.

Mallory thumped her head down onto the book in front of her and groaned miserably.

“Which part?”

“ALL of it.”

“It’s history, you just have to remember stuff. How hard can it be?”

Mallory whacked him on the head with her notebook and he laughed.

“I’ve studied Salem to death, and there’s enough popular culture out there about witches, that part is easy. It’s everything before then.”

Michael hummed, he’d get around to quizzing her but the light was getting darker in the wake of an afternoon storm and the humidity was making his eyelids droop.

“Hey,” she said, tugging lightly on a lock of his blonde hair, “you’re supposed to be helping.”

He waited and she tugged harder, it made him grin.

“Five minutes, Mallie. Give my brain a rest.”

“You’ve hardly used it.”

Michael rolled his head to look up at her. It always made something turn over in his chest when she smiled the way she was now. It was addictive, making her look that way. It was a gift when he could make her laugh.

“I’ve never really understood why it had to be such a secret.” Michael mused. 

“What do you mean?”

“Witches… Warlocks too, I guess. Why not overthrow everyone else and rule as the dominant race? No one normal could ever overpower us.”

Mallory shifted and sat up, tucking her legs underneath her and looking wistful.

“I’m not sure. I guess because there’s so few of us and so many of them.”

“Couldn’t we just kill them?”

She flinched back in shock, and the ensuing silence made Michael open his eyes and sit up in fear. Had he transgressed again? The stunned look on her face told him, possibly. Navigating these waters again, it was still a learning curve for him. So he waited while she collected herself.

“No, Michael.”

“Why not?”

“Because that would be wrong.”

“But why?” He was puzzled. Now that he was on this tangent the whole history made less and less sense to him. “So many people have hurt our kind, why should we not hurt them back?”

Mallory still didn’t seem to know what to say to make him understand when he was being so earnest. She began packing up her books. She started to speak, but kept stopping herself. Michael reached out to halt her trembling hands, to keep her from preparing to leave. Finally, she swallowed and looked him dead in the eye.

“Have you ever hurt anyone, Michael?”

Even he knew now that this was a tipping point. He gently wrapped his fingers around her wrist until he could feel her pulse through her soft skin. She had a hand flat on the textbook and he had only wanted to stop her from gathering the rest of her things but he couldn’t find the will to remove his hand. He felt like what he said next would decide whether or not he would ever touch her again. The whole reason he was here at Robichaux, how he got to meet Mallory, the most pure being he had ever known, was based on a lie. Ariel had sent him here to take the warlocks supposedly rightful place at the top of the hierarchy. To get stronger only if it would benefit their institute. And they had Cordelia believing he was only a very eager pupil with great talent, someone who wasn’t going to usurp her whole leadership.

It was a heavy weight on his shoulders, and it was exhausting. When he looked up Mallory was waiting patiently with those deep, sad eyes. He didn’t want to lie to her.

“Yes.”

She withdrew her hand and he was lost.

“Who?”

If he thought back on it, there were too many. His Grandma, the priest, the two women who tried to move into his home, the man at the grocery store and more… How much would he have to confess?

“Who did you hurt, Michael?”

He picked the one he thought she would understand the most.

“A man when I was younger, he thought I was possessed. He burned me.”

“What did you do?”

“I killed him.”

The despair on her face was profound, and it was like the mouse all over again. All Michael could think was _how do I fix this?_ _Is it beyond repair this time?_

Mallory didn’t say another word as she packed up the rest of her things slowly. She stood and moved to walk away before she halted and turned back. His heart caught in his throat.

She gently put his borrowed pen down on the ground in front of where he still sat on the floor. He couldn’t look at her. And there was absolutely nothing to say.

Mallory left the room and he was alone.

X

Hours later Cordelia found him sitting outside on the back steps leading to the garden. The storm had passed but rain still trickled down, gently watering the plants.

“Michael, are you alright?”

He couldn’t really swallow past the lump in his throat but he nodded, hoping that would be enough for her. When her footsteps echoed closer he squeezed his eyes tightly, trying to bring on a mask that would convince her.

“Why are you out here at this hour?”

“I needed some air.”

Cordelia rested a hand on his shoulder and the pressure was grounding. It felt like he could breathe again. But he still couldn’t look at her.

Their lovely Supreme seemed to know this wasn’t the time and place.

“It’s been wonderful to have you here with us, Michael. I hope you know that you can come to me with anything you need to talk about.”

He could only nod again, fighting the intense burning in his eyes. Hopefully she couldn’t see his face in the low light coming from inside the house. She squeezed his shoulder again and stood from where she had been crouched beside him.

“I only came out to remind you about your meeting with Hawthorne.” Michael’s eyes snapped wide open. “But don’t stay outside too late, okay?”

“Oh. Yes. Thank you, Cordelia.”

“Goodnight, Michael.”

“Goodnight.”

The meetings were scheduled weekly and he had not yet failed to make them. Today though, he was running incredibly late. Michael wasted no time in tipping his head back, squaring his shoulders and focusing his magic to get ready to project himself.

When he opened his eyes he was in front of the hearth in the entry. He hurried down the corridors to the Grand Chancellor’s office. The door was open and Ariel was sitting at his desk opening letters.

“I’m sorry I’m late.”

Ariel only nodded dismissively and gestured for him to take a seat. After making him wait a few moments he put his letter opener down and looked up at the young man's face.

“Are you alright, Michael?”

There were no words to express how not alright Michael was feeling, but these meetings were important and he would try not to jeopardize his standing with the warlocks. He only nodded and tried to school his face into something more blasé.

“Let’s get right into this, then shall we.”

Michael started his report mechanically, going over each and every subject in less detail than he might normally. Suddenly all he wanted was to escape back to his body, left in a trance on the stairs in New Orleans, and go the hell to bed.

“The Council and I have decided on a course of action,” Ariel interrupted Michael’s spiel. “I need you to promise to cooperate before I can go on.”

Michael was taken aback, but nodded warily.

“Okay…”

Satisfied, Ariel leaned forward over the desk.

“The Warlocks have been beneath the Witches for far too long. For centuries their Supreme’s have reigned and we have withered. Until you, Michael. As you know, we believe you are capable of becoming the Alpha and leading the Warlocks to greatness.”

Michael waited patiently for the catch. Ariel was grinning.

“It’s time we speed things up.”

“I’m studying as hard as I can, I’m not sure what else you would like me to do. Maybe I’ve been a bit distracted…” Michael’s thoughts drifted to how he had spent most of his time in class lately with Mallory, helping her with history, distracting her in divination, following her around in the garden and letting her help him with alchemy. Not that he had told the Grand Chancellor any of this. It was painful to think of now that he might never get to do that again with the one, true friend he had made. “But I am still better than any of them. Except Cordelia.”

“Exactly, it’s time we make you the _most_ powerful. Even after proving yourself with the Seven Wonders we still have no reports that she is letting go of the Supremacy any time soon.”

“So, what are you saying we should do?”

Ariel clasped his hands together and leaned closer, whispering conspiratorially.

“You need to kill her.”

A buzzing static started up in the back of Michael’s head and built louder and louder until he couldn’t hear himself think anymore. A day ago, hell even a few hours ago, Michael wouldn’t have flinched at the suggestion of murder.

But Cordelia.

Cordelia who had been sceptical of his power, and defensive at first in his efforts to prove himself better than her. Who had accepted him into their academy despite his gender and relatively unknown history. Had given him guidance and kindness and gratitude and her trust. He didn’t want to kill her. Just imagining it had him pressing a fist to his mouth to contain his nausea.

Spots danced in his vision when he thought of how Mallory would feel if she knew he killed the woman they all looked up to. Mallory who believed killing was wrong, that it was not a solution, who had abandoned him when he had told her of his past.

“No,” he gasped.

“Michael, I know this is difficult…”

“No, I won’t do it. I won’t.”

“You don’t have a choice.” That grin seemed to harden and twist and Michael’s vision darkened at the edges. His hands began to tremble and he found the solution in the silver letter opener sitting on the desk.

He lunged and with the quickest twist of his arm Ariel’s throat was cut down to the bone and arterial spray showered the room. Relief followed, and Michael sagged back into his chair. The murderous impulse was sated, and his problems solved for now.

The fire crackled on behind the body and eventually the blood slowed to a drying pool on the ground. Michael came back to himself slowly and the reality of what he had done was staggering. In an instant he was lashed back to his body and he looked out into the pitch black of the garden. There was blood drying on his face and sticking his collar to his neck. The letter opener was clenched in his hand. There was no coming back from this, and yet all Michael could think about was Mallory.

She was going to be so mad at him.

He finally started to cry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **;_______; I'm sorry**
> 
> **it'll get better I promise, they couldn't be cute all the time**
> 
> **I go from one extreme to the other with my sickeningly sweet smut to this rubbish**
> 
> **(don't leave sharp objects near our boy when he's upset, big yikes)**
> 
> **#hairpullingkink am I right Michael ******
> 
> **I love you guys so much pls make my morning tomorrow xxxx ******


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **heya thanks as always for reading you guys are the best and u make me so happy!**
> 
> **This is kind of an intermission chapter as everyone freaks out, but I added a relevant/cute flashback scene for ya**
> 
> **hope you enjoy, regularly scheduled cuteness/smut will come back soon I promise x ******

Zoe finds him the next morning sitting mute on the side of his bed. Clothes are draped beside him and over the lip of a suitcase. His face still had maroon blood spots though some had scratched away as it dried. He was late to class which was why she had gone to find him, but evidently he wasn’t planning on going.

“Oh my god,” Zoe said as she took in the blood on his clothes. “What happened to you?”

He didn’t answer, just kept solemnly rolling up his clothes neatly and pressing them into the case.

“Michael,” she said, cautiously taking another few steps into the room. “Are you hurt?”

The warlock stood abruptly and Zoe took an instinctive step back, but he didn’t acknowledge her, just crossed the room to the adjacent bathroom. When he came back in she could see he was not injured.

“What did you do?”

This made him look up and she realised he had been crying from the red puffiness around his eyes.

“Please don’t tell Mallory.” He whispered. Then threw the last of his belongings in, fastened the suitcase, took it in hand and disappeared.

Zoe ran for Cordelia.

X

_A few weeks ago…_

Cordelia proposed that it was time Michael started practising descensum again. They started by picking a day with no other classes as the spell could take more than a couple of hours and they needed to not be disturbed. He was attended by the Supreme, Myrtle and Zoe. In Cordelia’s office they turned the lights out and closed the curtains and removed the clock that ticked incessantly. He helped shift the furniture to clear a space on the floor and removed his shoes and jacket.

“Lay down, Michael.”

He didn’t want to admit that he was nervous as he lay down on the pale rug. Above him three faces hovered.

“That’s not very relaxing.”

Cordelia tapped his cheek gently and smirked.

“Close your eyes.”

He did as he was told and tried to take a few deep breaths, beginning to recite the words to descend.

Outside the wind moved in between the trees and the rhythm sent him down…

When he woke, hell awaited.

The long corridor of doors he remembered well enough. Intuition had him following it for a long time. Michael hadn’t been sent with any specific soul to find but rather a simple task to complete. He had to bring back a small object, insignificant enough to not disturb any of the personal hells.

A door to his left pulled him to a stop and without second guessing he took the handle and opened it.

Inside it was spring. Warm and balmy air beneath an endless blue sky with hardly a cloud to be seen. The grass was so green it almost hurt to look at. The space was clearly a park with winding paths and benches interspersed among the trees.

Mallory would love it here.

Considering that, he decided what better object to take than a plant. He wasn’t sure if she would appreciate a flower from the literal underworld but the idea was set in his mind.

As he walked examining the flora he realised he had not yet seen whoever inhabited this personal hell until a young boy hurried across the trail in front of him. Curiously, Michael turned away and left the path, following the boy. He could not have been older than 6 or 7, and was short with wavy, dark hair. The boy did not look behind once to see the warlock, and appeared to be very anxious to get to his destination.

Michael followed as the park ended and came to an empty street devoid of cars and people. The trees swayed isolated in the breeze and the boy did not break pace.

Rows of houses to their left did not break monotony until the boy suddenly ran up the stairs of one and knocked loudly at the door. From the street Michael saw a face peering out the upstairs window, then another, and another downstairs peeking through the curtain at the boy. The pounding at the door became more desperate and the boy began to cry and scream for his mother. She must have been one of the figures at the window, but she was devoid of emotion, robotic and absolutely uncaring.

And the boy's feelings? Oh they hit Michael like a hammer to the head. The despair the boy was feeling as he realised his family had rejected him, and would not let him back in. That he was doomed to relive this worst moment of his life over and over. That he would never get to go home.

After intolerable moments the boy faded, and minutes later crossed the street and began the scene again. Each time he seemed to grow more desperate, frustrated and distressed. Still the family inside watched with callous detachment as he wailed, and eventually turned away from the windows when the boy began to fade to start the nightmare over. Michael couldn’t tear himself away, watching the repeating images over and over until the next time the boy crossed the road he realised he had blonde hair.

He was a little bit taller, and a spitting image of himself when he was young. As he began pounding on the door Michael saw Constance’s face in the window, then Vivian and Ben, then Ms Mead.

The effort to stay calm was making the vision in front of him fall apart. He clenched his jaw until he tasted blood and tried to keep the world the right way up. As reality fractured around him the effort to keep control over the spell gouged his mind.

He screamed.

X

The young warlock had been gone too long, hours longer than anyone attempting descensum should. Myrtle noticed first that Michael’s eyes had started flickering back and forth behind his lids.

“Cordelia... something’s wrong.”

Just as she said it Michael’s body started to shudder and seize. Not violently, but enough to assume he was in distress. As the witches started to panic and hurry toward him the office door burst open and Mallory rushed in.

“Mallory, what are you doing?” Zoe asked stunned at the intrusion.

She looked frazzled and didn’t reply. Instead she set her mouth and strode over to Michael’s body to sit next to him on the ground. Taking his hand had an immediate effect, and the transfer of power was palpable. Mallory shifted closer and closed her eyes, clutching his hand in both of hers as his body slowed to the peaceful slumber in had been in before.

Cordelia collapsed to the floor.

“Oh shit!” Zoe abandoned Mallory with Michael and rushed to the older witch’s side. “Fuck, what the fuck, get Misty!” She yelled to Myrtle.

Among the new commotion, Michael and Mallory sat peacefully and still as she guided him out of the spell. He awoke with a gasp and lurched off the floor. Mallory caught his shoulders and pushed him back until he calmed down.

“Mallie…”

“Hey.” She smiled and put her hands on his face to gently wipe away the blood coming from his nose. “You’re okay.” It wasn’t a question, and as she spoke it he immediately felt calmer.

“How did you know?”

She shrugged and helped him sit up.

“I don’t know. I just did. You were in so much pain…”

"I failed the test." He realised, startled at his defeat.

"It doesn't matter."

Misty and Myrtle came into the room and they all gathered around Cordelia as she came to. Mallory stayed by his side until he felt strong enough to rise again.

Misty held the Supreme gently as she helped her sit up and Cordelia looked directly to Mallory, not Michael, gaze alight with wonder.

X

_Present day..._

Coco slipped the note to Mallory discreetly under their shared desk.

_Are u okay babe?_

Mallory smiled at her and tucked the paper beneath her worksheet as Ms Fay strolled around the silent classroom keeping a watchful eye out. She was one of their most intolerant teachers and it was wise to not piss her off.

Coco wasn’t satisfied and kicked her under the table.

 _Ow!_ She mouthed at her friend to which Coco just grinned in response and indicated the paper. Mallory sighed and unfolded it to write underneath.

_Some shit went down yesterday._

_Between who and who?_

_Michael and I._

Coco's eyes widened comically at this and scrawled ten question marks in response. When Mallory feigned work again she got a pinch to her arm this time.

“Girls.” Ms Fay warned them from across the room. They quickly pretended to work for another couple of minutes before Coco snuck her hand back to try and pinch her again. Mallory scrabbled for the paper.

_After class._

Coco didn’t forget easily and hounded her as soon as they stepped outside the room.

“Tell me, tell me, tell me!”

“Oh my god, just wait until we’re upstairs.”

When they got to Coco’s room Mallory collapsed miserably on the bed and hid her face in a pillow. Her voice came out muffled.

“I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“Too bad, bitch. Spill.”

The younger girl sighed and rolled onto her side. Coco came and sat on the bed beside her to pull off her own shoes and remove her jewellery. Mallory took off her metal headband and twirled it in her hands while she spoke.

“He told me something yesterday that just kind of freaked me out I guess.”

“What?”

Mallory bit her lip nervously, unsure if this secret was one she should be telling. But she trusted Coco, and she had been planning to tell Cordelia anyway.

“That he’d killed someone before in the past.”

“Oh please, that’s nothing!” Coco huffed. “Haven’t all these witches killed someone at some point?”

Mallory was confused, the world she grew up in told her murder was bad. What was wrong with these people?

Coco waited and when she still didn’t respond she went on.

“Zoe killed someone accidentally. That’s why she got sent here. Madison killed Kyle, but that’s a whole story, as you know.”

Mallory’s eyes bugged out.

“Oh, okay. I’ll tell you later. Anyway, my point is this shit just happens accidentally sometimes. When people first discover their powers or if they don’t know how to control it. Don’t even get me started on Myrtle or even worse, Fiona.”

Mallory contemplated the ceiling for a moment as she processed this.

“Have you ever killed anyone?”

“I magically count calories, what do you think?”

The girls were giggling when Madison swung her head around the corner.

“What the fuck are you two doing? Come downstairs. Everyone is freaking out.”

Their laughter died suddenly and they both hurried to get up.

“What’s happened?”

Mallory fixed her headband and prepared herself for the worst.

“Michael’s gone.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Cordelia is collapsing as Mallory exhibits power, Michael's strength doesn't seem to affect her - what could this mean????**
> 
> **btw the descensum stuff will become important later on!**
> 
> **I am unworthy of your love, but leave me some anyway xx**
> 
> **next chapter is already half written ;) ******


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Apparently I just really like making everybody cry ******

Mallory has never known grief before but it hits her hard when she hears those words.

Downstairs the witches are speaking in hushed tones. Cordelia makes for Mallory when she sees her.

“Did you know anything about this?”

It isn’t an accusation but guilt wells up from deep in her chest anyway. She thinks of her lovely, blonde boy who she has considered a friend for the past month since they resolved their differences. How he seeks her out in the morning so they can have breakfast together. He whispers silly things to her in class and always hands over a pen with an exasperated sigh when she realises she has forgotten hers again. Gardening is also more enjoyable when she was someone to tell her how beautiful her plants are, and sometimes they just sit together in the library while he sketches and she reads and when he looks at her when he says goodnight with those blue eyes like he’s grateful and she’s not even really sure why…

Oh that guilt cuts deep. And now he’s gone and her chest is caving in but Cordelia is still looking at her and waiting and-

“Let’s go to my office,” she takes the young girl’s arm gently and steers her away from the group that had gathered in the hall before the tears start spilling over.

With the door closed behind them Cordelia wraps an arm around Mallory’s shoulders and sits her down on the couch.

“Did something happen, Mallory?”

“No… well, not really.”

Cordelia rubbed her back soothingly and waited for her to gather her words.

“We had an argument yesterday. He told me something about his past. How he had killed someone before.” She says this with the gravity it deserves but Cordelia barely blinks.

“Yes, I know.”

“You _know?_ ”

“That’s how the warlocks found him.”

“No, this was before then. He said when he was younger.” Mallory turned her eyes to the floor and thought of what he had implied. “How many people has he killed?”

Cordelia shook her head sadly.

“It doesn’t matter now. But this is something I perhaps should have told you, told all of you.”

“What?”

Cordelia clasped her hands together and looked away guiltily. Mallory wiped the tears from her cheeks and tried to compose herself.

“I don’t think Michael is one of us.”

“What do you mean? He’s clearly powerful...”

“More powerful than any man has the right to be. He’s not normal. His magic is dark. He is strong, I’m not denying that. But I don’t think he is a warlock. He’s something else."

Mallory considered this as she tried to put this piece together with what she already knew about her friend. It was true that his magic came effortlessly to him, and he seemed to operate on a wavelength different to all of them, even Cordelia. The darkness, though. It fit with the things she knew he had done in the past, but it didn’t fit with the lovely boy she knew now.

“But what is he?” She wondered aloud.

“I’m not sure, Mallory. But I think it’s important we keep him on our side. We need to keep him in the light.”

Mallory swallowed down her pain and dried her face. She stood and helped Cordelia up.

“So, what do we do now?”

X

Ms Mead’s house hadn’t changed in the months since he left and his key still fit the lock. When she heard the noise from the front door she came rushing from the back of the house and a grin split across her face.

“Michael! Oh my boy!”

He wrapped her in a tight hug and she squeezed him, cooing all the while.

“You’ve gotten skinnier. What are those warlocks feeding you? Oh my poor little devil. What are you doing here?”

He couldn’t speak just yet, overwhelmed with emotion. He thought back to that day he last attempted descensum, and the personal hell that had called to him and how it warped before his eyes. That little boy was perpetually locked outside of his home, never to be held or loved again. How lucky Michael was, to be here now.

Eventually she pulled back and brought a hand to his face, sweeping away the dusty blood with her thumb.

“Ms Mead…” She noticed he was near tears and pinched his cheek gently.

“Tsk, your face is so dirty! You’ve made a right mess, you have.”

“I’m sorry…” He whispered.

“Go change out of that shirt so I can soak it, I’ll fix you some dinner. I’m glad you’re home.”

Later, after she had fed him more than humanly necessary and they had gone through all the small talk and missed moments of their respective lives he realised she wouldn’t dance around this forever.

“Alright, now. Why don’t you tell me how you ended up back home covered in blood, you little troublemaker.”

Michael swallowed as he stacked the plates and carried them to the sink.

“It was an accident. I didn’t mean to…”

“What did you do?”

“The warlocks… they asked too much of me.” Ms Mead came closer and turned him to face her. “They asked me to kill someone I care about.”

“… Do you mean me?”

Michael’s breath halted in his chest.

“No.”

She tilted her head back in shock. Had she not considered what kind of life he would live when he gave every moment of his time to the witches and warlocks? It had not been part of their master plan, her master plan truly, to join their ranks, to sympathise.

“Michael, now. Remember the plan!”

Being that he would only need to join the warlocks to gain an advantage over an enemy he wasn’t even sure he had. World domination seemed insignificant now to the family the witches welcomed him into. But how could he tell Ms Mead that?

“I couldn’t do it.”

“Well you sure as hell did something. I’m not soaking a good white shirt for nothing, mister.”

This was the hardest part. Her reaction now could change everything.

“It was Ariel.”

Those glassy blue eyes of hers seemed to shut off and her mouth set grimly.

“Oh, Michael. Why?”

He turned away growing more distressed and moved back to the dining table. He needed to sit down. This went on for another hour as Michael tried to justify his actions without giving too much away. Eventually, distraught and anxious he begged to go to bed. Ms Mead saw him up to his room and gave him a goodnight hug with a disapproving glare.

“We’ll come up with something in the morning. Get some rest.”

He’d never been so tired in his life. In the shower he couldn’t help crying again as the stress built up and overflowed. It was all fucked up. He didn’t want to be here anymore.

Crawling into his childhood bed made him miss the softer sheets at Robichaux with a tangible ache. It didn’t smell right, it was too hot and he couldn’t hear the trees outside.

In the end he did sleep, and though it was fitful at first it transformed into something deeper and more serene, and he heard a quiet, firm whisper...

_Michael, come home._

At dawn he knew what to do. Leaving was easier than he imagined. The sun was just beginning to rise and the house was dark and quiet. His shirt was still slightly damp from where Ms Mead had hung it the night before, but he used stiricidium to dry it out, only feeling a little smug that magic allowed him to do something simple like that. Michael put his house key gently on the counter, took his suitcase and closed the front door quietly behind him.

X

A wave of his hand had the gates opening before him. The house towered above him, spotless and white and intimidating in its beauty. Its quietness was unparalleled as if the noise from the street was swallowed up before it could reach it. He ascended the stairs and opened the perpetually unlocked door.

Inside it was unusually quiet and as he stepped in he tried not to feel like an intruder in what had once been his home. He set his suitcase down in the middle of the hall before the stairs and rubbed his hands nervously over his trousers. _What now?_

The karmic answer to that question was that his timing was terrible and young witches began spilling out into the hall as class let out. Most circled around him but Coco emerged from the room beside him and stifled a shriek.

“Oh my god, you’re back! I’ll go get Cordelia.”

Before he could say anything in response she had dashed off. He deliberated if that was a good or a bad thing for him. Was he no longer welcome here? Was Cordelia going to kick him out for even daring to return? Had the warlocks contacted her and told her of the suspicious circumstances of the death of their leader?

Had Cordelia really asked him to come home in his dream…

Michael ran his hands nervously through his hair and straightened his uniform. The last of the students dispersed and he looked up at the lone figure now standing on the stairs.

His angel had halted mid-step and was staring. He couldn’t look away and for a moment the whole world fell away and it was just the two of them and the space in between. Which was quickly reduced as she rushed down towards him. Michael steadied himself and Mallory threw her arms around his neck, pulling him down into a tight embrace.

All of a sudden Michael could breathe again, and the air fell out of his lungs and took all of the weight of the past two days with it. He wrapped his arms around her waist and pulled her tight and close, close enough that she was standing on his shoes to make up for the height difference. He buried his face in her neck and breathed deeply and she tangled her hands in his hair and he felt her smile.

They stayed that way for a long time, long enough that Cordelia, Myrtle, Zoe, Coco and Misty had gathered around them. A quick glance confirmed that they were all happy and relieved to see him.

“Welcome home, Michael.” Myrtle said, pressing a comforting hand to his shoulder. “We’ll give you two some time.”

Their audience moved away and still Michael held onto Mallory, swaying her gently. She stroked her nails along his scalp and seemed content to hold him until she felt his tears on her skin.

“Oh, Michael.” She said, pulling away as he sniffled. She caught stray tears with her thumbs and brushed them away, pulling him back down and waiting for him to calm. “It’s going to be okay.”

“I’m sorry, Mallie.” He hiccupped.

“Don’t be, I’m so happy you’re home.”

And he was, he’d never felt more at home in his life than he did now here in front of her. Future consequences be damned, it was worth it to have even one more moment feeling like this.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **so what do you guys think, are they ready to kiss yet?**
> 
> **(I highkey didn't know where Ms Mead actually lived, I'm assuming in LA and I was too lazy to decide how travelling there would work from New Orleans. Does transmutation go that far? Did Michael yeet out of there and take an uber and a plane? It's up to you guys lol) ******
> 
> ****Thank you as always for your kudos and comments and love xx ********


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **the chapter where everyone holds hands and I grant wishes ******

Cordelia lets him take the phone call in her office and waits outside on the settee. Zoe sits beside her and chews her lip nervously.

“This is his mother?”

“No.” Cordelia said, trying not to wring her hands when she heard Michael’s voice rising slightly behind the closed doors.  “But she raised him I think, he lived with her before his incident.”

“Why is she contacting him now? He’s been here for months.”

“I think he went to see her. And given how quickly he came back to us, it may not have went well.”

“You asked him to come back, didn’t you?”

“Yes. I hoped very much that it would work, but I didn’t know what else to do short of tracking him down and dragging him back.”

Zoe cracked a smile and took Cordelia’s worrying hands in her own. He had gone quiet again, but they could still hear the low murmur of his voice. It sounded like he was pleading.

“I have to confess something, but I want it to stay between us.”

“Of course.” Zoe said.

“You remember that day when he last tried descensum?”

“How could I forget?”

Cordelia stopped herself and tried to put into words what she wanted to say. Speaking as lowly as she dared.

“I don’t think Michael is the next Supreme.”

Zoe’s eyes widened and she gripped Cordelia’s hands tighter.

“What do you mean?”

“I think it’s Mallory.”

Zoe thought back on the events of that day and realised the moment Cordelia had collapsed was when Mallory had joined herself into Michael’s descensum spell. A witch at her level, still learning, should not have been able to do that. It all lined up, except for…

“But what about Michael? Hawthorne was convinced he was the next Alpha? It can’t be both of them, can it?”

Before she could explain further Michael cried out and they heard the sound of something breaking. Immediately Cordelia rushed to open the door.

Inside the phone was in pieces on the floor and he was shaking in rage.

“Michael…” Cordelia approached warily. When Michael turned towards her his face flashed bone white and black-eyed. It lasted only a second but she stepped back in horror.

He took a deep breath and attempted to get himself under control. Cordelia tried to convince herself it was a trick of the light, nothing more than her own tired eyes and the bright light in the room.

“I’m alright,” he said, deflating all at once and taking a seat in front of her desk. “I’m sorry about the phone.”

She came forward, still frightened but pushing past it. She needed to keep him on her side, no matter what he was. Pressing a motherly hand to his forehead as if feeling for a temperature, she felt him relax and lean into it. His face felt normal, back to his usual handsome appearance.

“What happened?”

“She’s angry with me.”

“For leaving?”

“No…” He took a shuddering breath but didn’t go on. “Cordelia, I did something wrong…”

She wondered when he would tell her. She’d heard from Zoe about how he had been saturated in blood when she found him that morning. Accounting for all the witches in the house and confirming he hadn’t hurt any of their own, she was eager for an explanation. She took a seat next to him and waited patiently.

“The blood?” She prompted when he still couldn’t seem to find the words, shifting his jaw anxiously.

“Ariel’s.”

She inhaled deeply. That explained the radio silence on Hawthorne’s end when she had reached out to let them know her student had left, in case he would have returned to them.

“Oh.”

Michael turned towards her and anxiously gripped the fabric of his trousers, eyes growing dewy.

“They wanted me to kill you.”

Cordelia couldn’t find it in herself to be surprised given the nature of the warlocks and their irrepressible need to be at the top of the hierarchy. Michael’s retaliation was a bit extreme though.

“Did he try to hurt you?”

“No… but I refused, and he told me I had no choice. And I just got so _angry_ …” He trailed off, knuckles going white with the stress.

Cordelia took his hands and unfolded them from their grip.

“ _Thank you._ ” She said as emphatically as she could, looking him in the eye so he could see how serious she was. “You did what you thought was right, Michael. And we’re both still here because of that.”

If the warlocks had truly had Michael on their side she didn’t question that he would have easily killed her by now, weakened as she was by Mallory’s ascension already. It wasn’t her judgement to make as to why his loyalties lay so strongly with her faction but she didn’t second guess herself. Michael was here and he was going to be fine. He was going to be _good_.

The boy in front of her swallowed and turned his hands over so they were palm to palm.

“You’ve done so much for me, Cordelia. I don’t know what’s going to happen now.” He sniffed and wiped his eyes.

“We’ll handle it together.”

After he left, considerably calmer than he had been, she collapsed back in her chair. Her muscles were atrophying and just holding herself upright for too long could exhaust her. Thinking back to that demonic white face she glimpsed, Cordelia resolved to discover more about Michael’s past to find out what she was truly dealing with.

As for Hawthorne, the witches would bide their time and prepare for war.

X

Things weren’t really okay between them yet. Since Michael had come back he had been avoiding class, maybe even avoiding her in as much as he could do that while still wanting to be near her. Even now as they sat together in the library only a few feet apart he was melancholy, sprawled out but emotionally closed in and staring into the distance while she read by lamplight. It was a quiet night and it was just the two of them and a few others studying further away in the dark corners of the room.

He craved her presence as much as normal, and hovered around her as usual, but he hadn’t come to class for the last few days and most attempts at conversation dissolved too quickly for comfort. But he was apologetic in the way he spoke and moved, as if he was afraid to be near her. Like he still thought she was mad about what he had told her. It wasn’t that Mallory was okay with it. As casual as murder seemed to the rest of them it still made knots in her stomach at the thought of ending a life. But for Michael she could see that although there may have been evil in him, he _wanted_ to be good.

Mallory bookmarked her page and switched off the lamp beside her. He startled from his slumped position but she did not make to leave, instead moving from the armchair to sit on the sofa beside him. Close enough that their legs were touching, she put an arm behind his head and stroked his hair until his eyes fell to half-mast.

“What’s wrong?”

He only sighed in response, leaning in to her touch. But she was patient and waited him out.

“I made things worse. When I left.”

“How?”

“I don’t want to say.” He said so quietly she barely heard him.

“Okay.” She tucked her legs beneath her and settled further into the cushions. “Would you tell me though, where you went?”

“I went home.” She waited a beat but he didn’t elaborate.

“To your parents?”

“No. My Ms Mead. She used to look after me.”

“Oh. But you came back so soon…”

“I had to.” He said quietly, looking over at her. “It was such a mess, Mallory. I fucked everything up.”

“No you didn’t. You’re here, you’re safe and you’re okay. Everything else we can fix.”

“… Are you still mad at me?” Those blue eyes were soft with fear.

“No.” She shifted closer and leaned her head back as well. “I’m not okay with it, but I understand better now what happened. Who you are.” He gave her a small but genuine smile and laced his fingers into her spare hand. Already she could see there was more weighing on his mind that he wasn’t telling her but she would pick her moment to ask in the future. In the meantime, she wanted to make him smile.

“Will you come to class tomorrow? … I really need a pen.”

He snorted and nodded, squeezing her hand gently. His eyes kept slipping further closed so she stood and used their joined hands to tug him up.

“C’mon.”

They followed the halls down to her room and he didn’t let go of her. Mallory opened her bedroom door and turned back to face him on the threshold.

His eyes didn’t look so sad now, and his shoulders had lowered from their tensed position. She wanted so badly for him to be okay, and was overwhelmed with joy that he was back here in front of her. On an impulse she leant up on her toes and pressed a long, lingering kiss to his cheek. Settling back she leant into him and breathed for a beat, then two, letting her hands slide down from his shoulders to his chest.

It surprised her then when Michael leaned down and pressed his lips to her.

Such soft, intimate pressure was new to her and made her mind go completely blank until he released her briefly. His hands circled her rib cage and pulled her closer, pressing kiss after kiss to her mouth until she was gasping for breath and winding her arms around his neck. Her brain still hadn’t caught up with what was happening but she tried to keep up with his insistent kisses. He moved a hand up to her neck and gently tilted her head back to better reach her. He kissed her like he needed it, like it was the only thing in the world that made sense. She slid her hands back up into his hair, clutching tightly at the golden locks until he moaned into her mouth. Mallory pulled away with a gasp and lowered herself back down from her toes, neck aching from where it had been craned to reach him. He really was too tall.

But Michael still wasn’t sated and moved down to her neck, breathing hotly on her skin before pressing a soft, wet kiss under her jaw. The mirroring of that movement with that dream that had haunted her for months had her whole body flushing hot. Overwhelmed, she placed her hands on his chest and whispered,

“Stop.”

Immediately he pulled back and looked at her with dazed confusion. She wondered if she looked as wrecked as he did with his hair a mess, lips swollen, glossy and parted as he tried to catch his breath.

“Do you not like it?” He murmured into her hair. Mallory swallowed and pressed her thighs together, her body’s reaction answering that question for her. She fisted her hands in his shirt and tried to concentrate on breathing.

“I do… I just think… I think we should take things slowly…”

Now he was beyond confused. What was _slowly_? He wanted to press her down onto her bed and keep kissing her. Was that too fast in this context?

“Okay,” he answered anyway, unable to not agree with his angel. Mallory took his hand again and he noticed she was trembling.

“Should I not have done that?” He asked, suddenly nervous.

“No! It’s fine… It was good,” she said breathlessly. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

She didn’t want to shut the door in his face, but he seemed unable to move and still looked desperately worried. Mallory pulled herself up again and left another lingering kiss on the side of his mouth.

“Goodnight.”

He wished her goodnight in return and finally started back to his room with a smile. With the door closed she thumped her head against it.

How the hell was she going to sleep now?

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **this is now officially the longest thing I've ever written. I'm pretty proud, and y'all have been so wonderful. I never realised having an audience for writing would be so rewarding, and you're all so nice and I love you and just... happy tears... I'll never stop gushing in the end comments about you ;_;**
> 
> **I'm getting heaps of writing done this weekend and our faves are being super cute and gross you'll love it, stay tuned for next chapter tomorrow x ******


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **these two I stg**
> 
> **I've been listening to the Tribes of Palos Verdes soundtrack on loop but this song in particular was useful for writing particular... scenes... in this chapter...**
> 
> **If you like mood music, check it out, it's a beautiful song**
> 
> **(https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9K8K3gF7ZU)  
> **  
> 

Life went back to his new version of normal, as much as it could with an anvil hanging over their heads. Retaliation wasn’t just expected from the warlocks, Cordelia was certain by their silence that things did not look good for the witches. They warded the house up and kept the albino henchmen around constantly for extra security. Not that they could stop against several powerful warlocks but Robichaux definitely had the advantage of strength, numbers and anticipation.

But Michael was suitably distracted with the way things between him and Mallory had been going. He would never have hoped for more than to just be friends yet she had given him more, had allowed him so much more. She never stopped surprising him. And he didn’t seem to have the strength or will to stay away from her despite everything she still had yet to learn about him and the things he had done.

Michael was growing addicted to the taste of her, craving it. Life carried on as normal except that they had this secret between them. The deviations in routine involved sneaking away to find quiet corners in the house to steal kisses in their spare moments.

When they found each other in the mornings he would press a subtle, light kiss beneath her ear and she would turn bright pink. In the garden shed out of sight he would run a finger down her spine until she shivered. It made him smile wide when he felt her hand on his leg beneath their desks in class, one fingernail picking at the seam on the side. And most nights they found an uninhabited part of the library and kissed until they ran completely out of breath.

There was some unspoken rule about their bedrooms being off limits, though he wished desperately he could take her hand and pull her over the threshold most nights when kissing her goodnight, just to keep her for a few more moments.

But she had warned him about moving too fast and though it had confused him greatly at first realising there was a _pace_ to relationships, he sought advice.

Kyle usually had a way of looking at him like he was a child asking the stupidest questions. Which in a way Michael was. But Kyle was so world-weary that he didn’t balk at the questions Michael sometimes had about how things _worked_ in life. Their friendship was odd but being the only two boys in the house except the henchmen they tended to band together. And when it came time to ask him some serious questions Michael was too embarrassed to seek anyone else out.

“What does it mean, when a girl says they want to take things slowly?” They were out in the city having coffee while waiting for Queenie and running errands. Queenie, who was a huge fan of the voodoo shops in town begged off and left them to wait as she navigated the tourist-packed streets.

Kyle raised his eyebrows over the rim of his café au lait.

“Mallory’s a bit shy, huh?”

Now Michael couldn’t hold in the blush and he smiled down at his shoes. Being out in normal clothes now that Hawthorne had basically disowned him meant he was back to his combat boots. Madison seeing him in his sleeveless tees had told him that he needed to work on his ‘guns’, and he meant to ask Kyle what the hell that meant too.

“Is that a bad thing?”

“No, man. Look, if she is telling you to go slowly, that means she does  _want_  you-”

“Not as much as I want her…” Michael trailed off miserably, picking flakes off his croissant.

“Or maybe she wants you _more_. She just has better self-control. And patience.” Kyle laughed at the warlock. Michael flicked some pastry over at him.

“Look,” Kyle set down his coffee and folded his arms on top of the table, “you really have nothing to complain about. Obviously, she’s kind of into you to be putting up with your dramatic ass. And do you really think Mallory _wouldn’t_ tell you where to fucking stick it if she had a problem?”

Without a doubt. His angel had bite and quickly made it clear when she was unimpressed. He thought of how angry she had been about the mouse and felt a flush of mortification at the memory. Michael rubbed his neck, considering it.

“It’s so frustrating!”

“I know, man.”

Before he could ask anything else, Queenie returned and they got back to business. Before they returned from the city Michael made sure to stop and pick out a new plant for Mallory. She had started cultivating succulents in preparation for summer.

He was in deep.

X

_Elsewhere…_

Three hooded figures descended the stairs at sunset and knocked at the impressive door. There was no need for a crowbar this time, they were expected.

A student permitted their entry and escorted them through the main halls, dark from the lack of windows and lit by fire. The office was occupied by three warlocks awaiting the arrival of their guests.

The Satanists sat down, removed their hoods and got down to business.

X

She’d taken to straddling him lately to equal out their height so she could kiss him as hard as she liked. When she first pressed her tongue gently to his lips, begging entry, his whole body responded, _oh this was a thing._

Michael didn’t know much about sex. What he did know he learnt from the internet Ms Mead had provided for him to complete his school assignments. Pornography was repulsive, but informative. He had some idea of what felt good to a woman but he wouldn’t call himself well-educated by any stretch, and he was certainly inexperienced. The things he didn’t know Mallory guided him through or they figured out together. Like how sweeping a thumb over the centre of her breast through her dress made her gasp, and sucking marks onto her neck pleased her in the moment but embarrassed her the next day.

Mallory had an intuitiveness to this that meant she mostly called the shots in their encounters. She was the one directed him breathlessly, told him _yes_ and _no, not there_ , who pulled his hair and bit his lips and he happily took whatever she would give him. Eventually though she couldn’t help but feel the reaction that was stirring in him when she pressed herself as close as she did.

She started to rock her hips gently over his, feeling daring in the empty library late at night. It was distracting enough for him that he broke their kiss to tip his head forward and groan. She settled her weight more evenly and he stifled whimpers as the pressure on his cock increased.

“Mallie…”

“Shh… it’s okay.” She murmured to his cheek, moving to pin an open kiss to his throat.

That perfect pressure slid over him again as she started to move, but was distanced by the layers of her skirt. Bucking his hips gave him no relief and he was unsatisfied until he took her hips and slightly pushed her up and away. In her confusion she started to stutter an apology until he gathered her skirt up around her waist, baring her panties and guided her back down. Mallory bit her lip but lowered herself down so his length nestled perfectly between her legs.

Michael rested his hands on the silk of her thighs and tried not to stare at the enchanting edge of her panties, quickly hidden from view as he released his grip on her skirt and felt his whole body react to the pressure of her damp centre on his trousers.

“Oh fuck.” The curses spilled out accidentally and Mallory herself was beyond words as she started up her rhythm again, hands planted firmly on his shoulders and eyes closed. She puffed warm breaths over his face and her quiet moans caught in her throat when he leant forward to kiss her.

Michael could feel himself getting closer from the slow but unrelenting pressure as she dragged herself against his cock. He’d never felt anything like this before, had never come close to this kind of pleasure in his life. His hands started to scrabble, clutching her thighs and waist and hair, letting her guide the pace she set but needing a release so badly.

Through half-lidded eyes she broke away from their kiss and took pity from the tortured look on his face. She pressed herself impossibly closer and firmer, biting down on his collarbone.

Michael’s body tensed up beneath her and he pitched his head back and moaned loudly. Feeling him pulse against her was a singular experience and contributed to the wetness between her legs. Mallory clapped a hand over his mouth to stifle the noise and looked back nervously at the door to the library.

When the pressure began to make him whimper she backed off, hovering over him and pressing tender kisses to his face as he came back to himself, breathing hot and hard against her neck. Holding her waist like she was going to fly away and at the same time grounding him. She had settled herself back and was catching her breath as well but she choked feeling his hand slide under her skirt to touch her. The feeling of his fingers becoming acquainted with the shape of her through the soaked fabric of her underwear was sending sparks to her abdomen, firing that deep pull that had her shifting her hips again.

Mallory bit her lip hard when he started moving his fingers against her, watching her face with extreme concentration to gauge her reactions to these new movements. The silk of her underwear was creating a delicious friction which she had been enjoying before but not as intensely as now with his full attentions.

“Higher,” she gasped, already close enough from rubbing against him that she wouldn’t need very much longer. Obediently his fingers glided up and began slipping against her clit.

“There.” She breathed hard into his hair, trying not to buck her hips too hard while he kept a steady pace and she began to tense.

“Don’t stop,” she gasped, grabbing his arm and tilting it until it was perfect. In response he pressed just that little bit harder, looking at her with adoration that bordered on worship.

The pressure that had been steadily building inside her made her whine until that familiar wave in her abdomen crested and fell, taking her with it. She cried out quietly into his shoulder, shaking and moaning as he continued slowly until she pulled his hand back, oversensitive.

The look on Mallory’s face was art. Flushed red with kiss-bitten lips and hooded eyes. Michael surged forward and sucked her bottom lip into his mouth hungrily. Kissing kept them occupied for a few more minutes before footsteps sounded in the hall outside and startled her so badly she leapt off him and began righting her clothing.

He was grinning up at her, looking debauched and proud of himself for it. The footsteps passed but Mallory was still shaken at nearly getting caught.

“We should go to bed.”

“ _Yeah_ , we should.” He said mischievously, raising his eyebrows.

“To our own beds. In separate rooms. At either end of the house!” She huffed, pulling her shoes on from where she had kicked them off hours ago.

He stood and wrapped his arms around her from behind, nuzzling her hair.

“But why? My bed will be so lonely…” He said, starting to joke but letting the vulnerability creep in. Mallory shivered, weighing up the choice in her mind. “I’ll keep you warm…”

“We shouldn’t.”

He breathed deeply and she felt it through her back. Unable to see his face it was easy to keep the distance between them she was suddenly craving after being so intimate with him. She was scared, plain and simple, of what she had felt. He rubbed a thumb over her hipbone and he was at the precipice of either begging or acquiescing when she realised he still needed her now but in a different way.

“Okay, fine.” She muttered, taking his hand and dragging his form out the door, checking the hall first for anyone passing by before sneaking up the stairs.

He was still kiss-drunk and elated to be going with her. With an arm around her shoulders he kept trying to smell her hair while they walked until she pushed him off in the hall.

“I need to clean myself up. You should too.”

He looked a little hurt by her actions so she added softly,

“I’ll leave my door unlocked.”

After a quick change and clean-up of the mess between her legs Mallory removed her makeup and pulled on a soft cotton nightgown. Rushing back from the bathroom she peeked in and found her room still empty so she left the door balanced open and climbed into her plush bed. Despite the intimacy they shared just before she found herself unaccountably nervous for him to be in her space, in her bed. A brief horrific thought of her morning bed hair was interrupted when he stepped through and closed the door behind him.

Michael turned to her, he had a nervous smile and was trying not to fidget.

“Hey.”

He wore only a t-shirt and boxers and still looked like the only thing she ever wanted. She folded down the duvet and beckoned him over with an outstretched hand.

“Come here.”

Mallory had never had a boy in her bed before and it was strange as they both settled down, trying to get used to each other. After a few minutes she realised how hot he ran and snuggled closer, slipping a hand around his bicep and resting her cheek on his shoulder.

“You okay?” He whispered.

“Better, now.”

Deep breaths and he brought his other hand over to gently stroke her arm. Moments later he was almost asleep. Mallory kissed his shoulder gently and closed her eyes, content.

X

In the witching hours another of their young students is unaccounted for in her bed.

_She’d gone to a party,_ her friend tells the Supreme through tears the next morning, _I didn’t realise she hadn’t come home._

But she had come home, torn into pieces on the front steps. Pulled apart so viciously it could be explained away as an animal attack to the authorities, but not for the symbol her limbs had created. And cursed so that not even Cordelia’s breath could bring her back to life.

The message was clear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mallory really liked that plant hey Michael? *wiggles eyebrows***
> 
> **I'm not American but writing 'knickers' instead of 'panties' just doesn't seem as hot does it**
> 
> **keen for the next chapter? things get bittersweet**
> 
> ****can you believe my naive ass originally planned only 9 chapters? I have so far to go... ********
> 
> ****Thanks as always for the love and support xxx ********  
> 


	10. Chapter 10

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A long one, and full of unfortunately necessary exposition. Bear with me guys, there's still some cute stuff. And it gets better from here. ******
> 
> **Also sorry for lack of update yesterday, where I live had some massive storms and we lost power for six hours! So my insane posting schedule might not be so great this week... ******

Cordelia had returned to a house full of grief and rage and bloodstains on the stairs.

The girl, Sybil, had been studying at Robichaux for a few years and was at the age where she was going out some nights to enjoy her youth. The violence was senseless and Cordelia would not ever forget the slack expression on her decapitated head, placed in the centre of the bloodied pentagram on the front porch.

She had only been gone for a few days with Madison and had left Myrtle in charge. What she had learnt from visiting Michael’s childhood home would change everything for them. She planned to pull Michael out of his first class to finally hear the truth from him.

He looked well-rested but solemn based on what they had all discovered that morning.

Cordelia beckoned him in and closed the office door behind him.

“You and I need to talk.”

His face betrayed no surprise, almost as if he had been expecting this day to come. Cordelia came and sat across from him, keeping distance and trying to remain professional despite her primal fear of knowing who, or rather what he was.

“It’s time you told me everything, Michael.”

X

Michael hadn’t come to class again. When he wasn’t in alchemy at the end of the day Mallory started to let herself freak out. Had she made a huge mistake? Letting him see her the way he did, not only physically but emotionally vulnerable. She chastised herself, feeling stupid for expecting things wouldn’t be different now, expecting too much.

He had seemed fine that morning when they woke up curled together. When she rolled over he stirred and leaned forward to kiss her so sweetly she saw stars.

But they had been running short on time so she had sent him back to his room early before the other students started milling about in the halls. Maybe she had been wrong to do that, had hurt him knowing he was feeling as vulnerable as her. She’d never been with a boy before – she didn’t have an instruction manual.

Or maybe he knew the girl who had died last night and was mourning. Mallory had not known her personally, only by face and name yet still felt the ache of grief settling in her soul. Everyone in the house was affected and the mood was sombre, to put it lightly. Cordelia and Myrtle had decided to keep classes on to maintain routine as was standard in the event of a tragedy.

And then the other, scarier thought - that he might have disappeared again. The fear of it lingered in her mind now and she couldn’t shake the paranoid feeling that there was still something he was keeping from her or protecting her from. Maybe it was too terrible for her to know.

Mallory had messed up her potion twice because every time someone came through the door she whipped her head around hoping to see his blonde hair. The other students could sense she was in a mood and kept well clear of her. She’d stubbornly resolved to not look up anymore until she’d perfected her work, tying her hair into a knot and trying not to count down to the end of the day.

It worked for about five minutes until she felt a hand on her lower back and a presence looming behind her. The shock of it made her slip with the paring knife she had been using to peel a root and the blade sunk into the base of her thumb.

She cried out in pain and Michael reflexively swore in shock.

“Oh fuck, Mal, I’m sorry!”

With a shaking hand she put the knife down and he hurried to get a clean cloth. There was blood dripping on the floor and about fifteen girls staring at her, a few who came over to ask if she was alright. When he came back he pressed the cloth to her hand and squeezed it so tightly it hurt, panic making him senseless.

“Here, let me.” She said, taking his hands away and putting pressure on the wound herself. As the adrenaline died down and the others moved back to their stations Mallory finally had a moment to ask,

“Where were you?” She tried to keep the edge of desperation out of her voice. He didn’t seem to notice, too busy mopping up the blood on the floor at her feet.

“I had to talk to Cordelia,” he said, rising back up, hands full of bloodied rags, “she needs to see you too.”

A frisson of terror went through her, was this about last night in the library? Relationships weren’t forbidden between students but it had been nice to keep him to herself for a while and avoid the fallout her friends would inevitably create. But if someone had heard them, or god help her _seen_ them… Her horrified face made Michael smirk as he realised what he implied.

“Not about that.” He took her hand again and peeked under the cloth to see the damage. “God, Mallie I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to scare you.”

It scared her more that she had jumped to so many conclusions about his absence beforehand. Here he was acting perfectly normal, his usual sweet self and she was jumping out of her skin.

“C’mon, I have to bring you to her.”

Mallory turned off her burner and Michael helped her tidy away her ingredients. Outside of the classroom he wrapped an arm around her waist and they both seemed to breathe a bit easier.

“Does it hurt?”

“It’ll be okay.”

 As they followed the bright halls of Robichaux Michael seemed to walk slower, as if he wanted to prolong this meeting as much as possible. She turned to him outside Cordelia’s office door.

“Are you coming in too?”

“No,” he said, “she only wants to see you.”

“Okay.” He checked her wound again, stalling and she let him, just happy that all her anxiety earlier was unfounded. Though he looked worried, hopefully only about her injury.

“Will you promise to come find me afterwards? No matter what she tells you?”

Mallory looked up at him, but couldn’t get a read on what he might be trying to imply.

“Alright.” She promised. He kissed her forehead and opened the door for her, ushering her inside.

Cordelia stood wistfully at the window, supporting herself with one hand on the sill. She smiled when she saw Mallory until she looked down at her hand.

“Oh my goodness, are you alright?”

“It’s fine, it’s only small.”

“What happened?” She came closer and looked at the wound herself, tutting and sitting Mallory down.

“I slipped with a knife in alchemy.”

“That’s unlike you,” Cordelia said distractedly. “Stay here, I’ll get some bandages.”

She came back in and set a first aid box down on the desk, peeling the cloth gently away from the sticky blood around the wound.

“Michael said you needed to talk to me.” Mallory said. Cordelia heaved a sigh and tipped some disinfectant onto a square of gauze.

“Yes, though this isn’t a conversation I want to have… There are things you must know.” Gently she began cleaning around the wound. “I went away just before our latest tragedy…” She trailed off swallowing hard. “I learned some things about Michael that I need to tell you. Because of who you are, and who you are going to become.”

Mallory blinked at this ominous declaration and waited for some sense to come out of Cordelia’s mouth.

“Mallory, you will be the new Supreme.”

And just like that she felt the earth tilt beneath her. The sting of the disinfectant in her cut reigned her in a bit.

“… Me?”

Cordelia switched to a new piece of gauze and gave her an apologetic grimace.

“Yes. You, Mallory. I realised after you performed the descensum spell to help Michael. But it’s not just that. You are a powerful young woman and you have gifts unlike anything we have seen before. You’re getting stronger every day.”

Mallory was still too stunned to consider it.

“What about Michael? Isn’t he here because he is going to become the Alpha?”

Cordelia stuck some butterfly bandages over the wound to hold it closed and unwrapped a length of bandage.

“That’s the other thing I need to tell you about. And believe it or not this will be even harder to hear.”

“But I can’t be the Supreme… that would mean…” Mallory had caught up with the realisation that she was now the one responsible for Cordelia’s sickness. That ultimately she would kill her.

“Mallory, it’s okay.” Cordelia said, touching her forehead to hers when she saw the despair on the young girls face. “This is meant to be, it’s natural. Don’t blame yourself.”

Mallory tried to mask the pain on her face to focus on what else she needed to hear. She nodded to Cordelia to let her begin wrapping her hand.

“I spoke to you about how I believed Michael wasn’t truly a warlock.”

“Yes, I remember.”

“Well.” Cordelia weaved the bandage expertly around Mallory’s delicate hand. “I decided it was time to learn what he really is, and where he came from. Recently, Madison and I visited the house Michael grew up in, in California. Michael is powerful, but Zoe and I realised that he isn’t truly born with magical gifts like an ordinary witch or warlock. He was born of something much darker.”

Mallory swallowed, and nodded for her to go on when Cordelia paused.

“The home was filled with spirits. More than we could count, and each gave us part of the story to learn where Michael came from.”

Loud static was building in Mallory’s head. That same something that had once screamed in her chest that he was dangerous that day he held out a hand for her to shake and she refused. That feeling was back in full force. The other warring half of her knew that after she heard this, nothing would ever be the same.

“Go on.” She said, voice shaking.

“Oh, Mallory. I wish I didn’t have to tell you.” Cordelia fastened the bandage with a clip and rested Mallory’s hand back in her lap.

“Please.” She begged.

Cordelia did eventually break the silence, and Mallory’s heart too.

“Michael was born from evil. He was put on this earth to destroy it.”

Her breath halted halfway out her chest.

“He was brought up by his grandmother at first, an unstable woman who killed herself because of the stress of raising him. She told us he was a sweet child, but that hurting things was in his _nature._ It escalated until he was killing people, without knowing that it was wrong. It became too much for her to handle. And after that the spirits of the house took care of him until the Satanists discovered him and recruited him to their cause. They called him the _antichrist_.”

Mallory could see Cordelia was talking, but she could barely hear her through the shock. Still Cordelia went on.

“I met with Michael this morning, and he confirmed everything. His training with the warlocks was a ruse to defeat us all from the inside, as we were the only people who might have been strong enough to stop him from initiating an apocalypse. But his loyalties changed, Mallory. Understand that, that is the most important thing I am telling you. He is on our side.”

Mallory gripped her wounded hand until the pain sharpened her thoughts again.

“How do you know?”

“Because he killed their Grand Chancellor when they asked him to kill me. And so now the warlocks have declared war on us by killing our young Sybil. He has abandoned his caretaker, who was one of the Satanists who took him in as a boy. We suspect now they are working together to take him back."

“How can he be evil, when he… when he’s…”

Mallory’s face was wet and she realised with a flinch that she was crying. Cordelia took her face between her hands to look her in the eyes, near tears herself.

“He can be good, he _is_. There is humanity in him. You know this, darling, you do.”

“Why are you telling me all of this now?”

“Because you need to know, Mallory. In case I don’t make it to the end of this.”

A sob escaped the girl and she covered her mouth with her hand. This was all so, so wrong, but it made sense. It felt like a veil had finally been lifted. Everything was falling into place.

“Mallory… You need to understand that what Michael is, it isn’t his fault. He was born to fulfil a purpose. But we can make sure that doesn't happen. His past is troubled and he has been abandoned by the people he loved. Or used by people he thought loved him. We’ve given him stability here, warmth, love, a home. We need to make sure he stays here in the light. We mustn’t lose him.”

Her reasoning was working and Mallory began to get a hold of herself, still hiccupping and sniffling but blinking wide, understanding eyes and looking at her clearly.

“Can you do that for me, Mallory? Can we keep him?”

“Yes,” she gasped without hesitation. “I will.”

X

Michael waited for her outside, crouched down in the twilight to pick the curling leaves from her flowers. Such an angelic face, with those lovely eyes. It was like all the biblical stories of the devil being beautiful. And there he was in her garden dressed in a handsome black suit waiting for her.

Mallory hadn’t had many perfect things in her life. It had drastically improved since she left her family and had come to the witches. Being safe and accepted with wonderful friends and a place in the world. But the way Michael made her feel was… alive. Utterly complete. He was meant to be here with her, let the Satanists believe what they wanted. He may be powerful, maybe not even human, but he was hers now.

Michael stood when he saw her, brushing the dirt off his hands carelessly on his pants. The sunset sunk behind him and she approached his shadowed self, uncaring of the telling state of her face.

“You know everything now.” He said sadly, trying carefully to hold himself together lest he collapse at her feet. Mallory moved closer, seeming to float towards him over the rows. She took his hands in hers, not minding that they would get dirty as well.

“I know you.” She said.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I hope Mallory's reaction to this news wasn't too out of character. She seems like such a forgiving person, and I tried to make it clear so far in the story that she was understanding of his 'dark places', as he would say. What's being the antichrist on top of that, really. gurl is thirstay**
> 
> **Also don't ask me why Cordelia or Michael couldn't have just healed the wound, I just wanted them to be doing something with their hands while they had that long-ass conversation lol**
> 
> ****thanks for reading, let this overstressed, crazy author know if u liked it x ********  
> 


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **hello my lovelies, welcome to some more nonsense**
> 
> **I'm not super happy with this chapter but I'm tired of agonising over it and I am keen to write the next.**
> 
> **Also how had I not written Misty until this chapter?? A travesty, I'm telling you. ******

Mornings were becoming the best part of his day.

Michael would wake with a face full of Mallory’s fragrant, messy hair. He would shift his hips away first thing from where he was pressed tightly against her body, and then spend another few moments just being at peace with holding her.

Inevitably she would stir and thread her fingers through his, pressing a kiss to the skin at his wrist. He’d whisper a hoarse _good morning_ into her soft skin, and she would smile sleepily.

And then she would kick him out so he could go and get ready for the day in his own room.

Each day was getting later and later though, and those same girls who used to titter at him when he first arrived were now giggling for a different reason. Michael would just grin at them, so beyond happiness. Whatever they were saying wouldn’t change that. Though he got some disapproving frowns from the teachers when he would sit too close to Mallory in class. A few times they had to be separated as he was stealing her concentration.

They ate breakfast together most mornings like normal. She preferred dark breads with butter and honey and a plate of fresh fruit. He missed tasting that sweetness on her breath. And they spent hours talking now. Quietly and out of earshot of the others in the living quarters, over the plants during the daily watering, or on Saturday mornings like now in bed curled together on her pile of pillows. The curtains were still drawn to block the morning light but a breeze tossed them aside gently every now and then and made gentle beams shiver across her face.

“I didn’t even know ghosts were real.” She said amazed when he told her of the home he grew up in. Michael had ended up in her bed again like he did most nights. He always argued that her bed was bigger but truthfully he liked that Mallory’s room actually looked lived in compared to his. She was always quick to complain that she was too cold at night without him. And they always slept better beside each other.

"Well," he said thinking back on all the spirits in his childhood home, "they're pretty miserable."

"I can imagine."

Michael hadn’t realised just how much he needed to talk about his past, how healing it was to discuss it with someone who either accepted it without question, or if she had judgement she reserved it. He knew she talked with Cordelia more often now to try and come to terms with some of the more horrific things he told her. But somehow, impossibly, thankfully, she kept coming back to him. Asking more.

“Would you ever want to go back and see them?”

The question awoke a deep pain he had compressed years ago. He’d never considered returning, certain that he would not be welcome.

“I don’t think so. They wouldn’t want to see me.”

“It’s just sad to think about. That they’re all still trapped in there.”

When he didn’t respond she dropped the subject and shifted closer.

“I’m sorry… if I’m bringing up bad memories.”

She was propped up on one elbow, hair free of her usual golden crowns and those big brown eyes looking up at him so affectionately. He dared to kiss her in response, pressing her gently onto her back.

They hadn’t done anything since that last night in the library. Not that he hadn’t been craving it and she hadn’t been caught staring at him hungrily a few times either. He understood that what she knew about him now required some distance to come to terms with. They were getting better every day though, and it didn’t stop him from hoping that he could be that close with her again.

Mallory accepted his kisses, tracing his cheekbone with a thumb and sighing. He kept himself in check while he licked into her mouth. If she gave any indication she wasn’t ready he would stop. But she didn’t, instead pulling him over her so he slotted between her legs. It was lazy and breathless though he hovered uncomfortably over her, keeping distance until she hooked an ankle over his ass and pulled him down.

“Mal… are you sure?” He panted between kisses.

“Yeah.” She pulled at his t-shirt like it was offending her. He shrugged out of it and went back to letting her bite at his lip, moving from lazy to impatient like flipping a switch.

“Don’t you want to… take things slowly?” He gasped when she ground herself against him and took his supporting hand to place it on her breast through her nightgown.

“Not right now.”

It still didn’t settle with him. Unbelievably, he felt like he finally understood that mystical relationship pace. She was moving too fast, like she was trying to make up for lost time. Or trying to do something before her bravery ran out.

He broke the kiss slowly, whispered a quiet _sorry_ then pulled his hips away again and rolled off to the side. Pressing soothing, apologetic kisses to her cheek and jaw.

She looked hurt and bit her lip, turning away from him. He could see she had turned red with shame.

“Mallie…”

She huffed and tried to roll further away but he stopped her, burying his face in her neck and planting a kiss there. It was her weak spot and he felt her deflate sadly.

“It’s okay.”

“It’s not.”

Michael leant up and kissed the tears welling at the corners of her eyes. She let out a miserable sob, covering her eyes but turning into him. He gathered her up and held her tightly.

“Fuck! I don’t even know… why I’m upset.” She said between gasps.

He stroked her back and kissed the crown of her head over and over until she calmed.

“It’s just… The things Cordelia told me.”

“About me?”

She hesitated but nodded, drying her eyes. He thoughtfully got up from the bed to find her a tissue to blow her nose.

“About me as well though. And how she’s dying because of me.”

Michael grimaced, sitting beside her on the bed. He didn’t really know what he could say to make this better. _Sorry, I’m the son of Satan, and you’re killing our Supreme because you will be better than her. Still want to make out?_

“It’s alright if it takes time, Mallory. We don’t have to rush.”

She eyed his chest but the effect was lost given she was flushed with tears and her smile was wobbly.

“I want to… I want things to go back to normal. The way they were.”

“I know.” He said rubbing her back soothingly.

“I miss you.”

Michael swallowed, feeling a new sort of pain in his heart that had him feeling equal parts guilty and relieved. Guilty that he couldn’t give her what she wanted right now, but relieved that someone cared enough about him to actually miss him.

“I’m right here.” He whispered and Mallory breathed deep and nodded, turning to kiss him chastely. After she had completely calmed down and they were curled together again, she flinched at the sudden realisation.

“Oh! Today we are practising descensum, aren’t we?”

He sighed into her skin, not wanting to get up and be a warlock today. He wanted to stay in her bed and not leave until things were definitely okay again.

When she tried to get up he stretched more of his weight over her, and then again until she was giggling and pushing at his arm.

“Get off! We need to get ready.”

Eventually he let her go, happy that she was not so melancholic anymore and that he had made her laugh.

“Alright. Let’s not keep them waiting.”

X

In Cordelia’s sitting room they shifted the furniture to once again clear a comfortable space on the floor. Michael helped Mallory down and watched adoringly as she fussed with her skirt, trying to get comfortable.

“This is rubbish. Can’t we do this on a bed?”

Misty attended them, and smiled wide at her.

“Just further to go. If you’re going to the underworld you might as well be close to it.” She clapped her hands, startling them slightly. “Now! Let’s get going.”

“Shouldn’t we wait for Cordelia?” Michael asked, sitting on the ground beside Mallory.

“She’ll be here in a moment. But she said we should get started. C’mon.” She ushered them to lie down. Misty hovered over them making sure they were alright, accidentally draping the fringe of her shawl over their faces and making them laugh and swat at her. She stayed by their heads and waited for them to settle. The curtains were drawn and the day was cool and still. There wouldn’t be any distractions. Michael began to say the words and Mallory nervously joined in but she kept fidgeting, twisting her rings and smoothing her dress. Clearly nervous about attempting such a spell, one of the Seven Wonders no less, though she had done it mindlessly before in her panic to help him. Michael reached down and took her hand, linking their fingers and their magic. Slowly, they descended. Mallory squeezed his hand tightly, frightened. But they kept both their eyes closed until they emerged on the other side.

She looked pale when she opened her eyes, swaying slightly on the spot.

“Are you alright?” Michael asked.

“I’ve been better...”

“You did great, Mal. You did it.”

Mallory looked around warily at the endless corridor with the reflective walls, holding tighter to his hand and wrapping her other around his arm. She was afraid to let go in case the spell collapsed, though he had faith it wouldn’t.

“There’s a lot of doors.”

“Yes.”

“How do you pick… which one?”

“I just walk,” he said, starting to move, “you’ll know which one when you reach it.”

His angel kept close to him, afraid of this space.

“I don’t like it here.”

“Why?” He asked, looking around. The hallway went as far as the eye could see but there was no sound or smell. It didn’t move him in anyway but she was disturbed by it.

“You sound far away, like you’re underwater.”

He frowned, she sounded fine to him. Pondering what this could mean, he was surprised when she started walking, distracted by something in the distance.

They walked in companionable silence for a few hundred paces until she stopped abruptly. He felt no pull to the door she picked but was content to follow her in her exploration of the spell.

“This one.” She said. He made to open it and she inhaled sharply. “Are you sure we should do this?”

A brief flashback of his last time attempting this spell made his hand falter. That young boy’s hell and the way it had adapted to Michael’s presence. Having Mallory here with him made him feel ten times stronger than he had doing it alone. He hadn’t told anyone of what he had seen that last time, just that he had lost control over the difficult spell. Whatever was on the other side of this door he was sure they could face together.

She saw his hesitation and pressed her face to his shoulder, but said nothing. She trusted him with this decision.

Michael opened the door and lead her across the threshold.

A grey world awaited them.

Ash and smoke, and the rubble of a grand building crunched underfoot as they stepped through the bones of a large house half collapsed. Crows circled in a red sky above and cinders drifted in the air like snow.

“Oh!” Mallory gasped in horror. He realised at the same time she did. This was Robichaux.

“… Whose hell is this?” Michael asked, looking around in awe at the familiar shapes of the house.

Mallory broke away from him and went to clutch the crumbling wooden banister. Grief was heavy on her features as she looked around at her destroyed home.

“ _You shouldn’t be here_.”

The voice made Mallory step back in fright and Michael immediately moved to her side, looking up at the figure on the stairs.

It looked down at them, bloodless and vacant-eyed.

“Sybil!” Mallory’s voice was shaking. “Oh my god.”

“ _Why are you here_?”

Michael stepped forward, realising this was an opportunity to get some answers for Cordelia.

“What happened to you, Sybil?”

The dead girl’s eyes swirled down and her head rolled unnaturally on her neck. She began to descend the steps in wild, jagged movements.

“ _Those people… they killed me… didn’t you notice_?”

“We did, Sybil.” Mallory said, stepping forward to be equal with Michael’s protective stance. “We all miss you so, so much. I’m so sorry this happened to you.”

“ _They cut off my head_.” Her voice began to warble and her image flickered as the ghost’s emotions started to spiral. “ _They took my limbs. They sliced me open and used me for paint._ ”

“Was it just men?” Michael asked. “The warlocks? Or were there others?”

The ghost was now in front of them. Her dress was grey, and smudged. She was colourless like the destroyed world around them. But she was still just a girl, an unfortunate victim, a casualty of war that was only just beginning. And she was lost.

“ _Yes… How did you know?”_

“They wore black hoods? A man and two women?”

“ _Only a woman. She had short, dark hair. And very blue eyes like yours, Michael. She spoke like she knew you_.”

He tilted his head down, trying to find the words but she beat him to it.

“ _They want you back, to complete your purpose_.”

“Purpose?” Mallory asked in a low voice.

Sybil gestured at the world around them.

“ _Do you like it? This would be your doing, Michael_.”

Mallory looked around in dismay, taking in this world with new eyes at this revelation.

“That is their plan. It was never mine.” Michael’s voice was definite. “I do not want this. They made me think I did, but I changed my mind.” He looked over at Mallory. The emotion on her face made his chest tighten but he knew with absolute certainty then that he had made the right choice.

Sybil flickered again and wiped away silvery tears.

“ _The woman spoke of how you had strayed, that you had been manipulated by our Coven.”_

“I’ve found my way with the Coven, they’ve _saved_ me. Those crazy doomsday fuckers can’t have me anymore. This world will never come to be.”

“ _Except here.”_ Sybil said sadly. This pulled Michael up, he couldn’t imagine why he would have ever wanted a world like this. Beneath his shoes was only ash and devastation. Nothing was alive or beautiful here.

“Is there anything else you can tell us?” Mallory asked.

Sybil tilted her head and seemed to wilt in front of her.

_“They spoke carelessly while they were cutting into me… They plan to draw the Supreme out, and attack our home when we are vulnerable. There will be more like me. Please don’t let them hurt us.”_

Mallory stepped forward and touched the ghost, holding her arm gently and speaking softly.

“We’ll make sure it doesn’t happen again. Sybil, I’m so sorry.”

Something happened between them when Mallory made contact with the ghost. Sybil’s head snapped up at the transfer of energy.

“ _Mallory, there is something you must see. Come with me.”_

Mallory gently pulled away from Michael’s firm grasp on her other hand. He widened his eyes in fear, not trusting this shade. But his angel was for the first time unafraid. That same pull that brought them to this door was glazing over her eyes.

“It’ll be okay. I’ll only be a moment.”

Sybil held out her hand and Mallory took it. Together the girls ascended the stairs to reach the wing of the house that was still standing. He was left alone in his world of ruin.

X

Michael woke from the spell. His eyes snapped open and Robichaux’s normal, intact roof was above him. When he turned his head he saw Misty and Cordelia in his periphery, and Mallory still gone, lost in the spell.

“Mallory.” He said, startling the two witches sitting together.

He sat up but didn’t dare remove his hand from hers, afraid to leave her without his magic to support her. In case what happened to him would happen to her as well. Michael hadn’t intended to end the spell. After Mallory and Sybil disappeared from view he had been pulled away without a choice.

Misty and Cordelia came over to his side. He began telling them in panicked fragments what they had discovered and what Sybil had told them.

“Then Mallory was just gone, and I woke up. I couldn’t control it. Should I go back?”

“No,” Cordelia said immediately. “You might make the spell messier than it already is with the two of you tangled in it. Descensum is not something you can fall in and out of, it is the physical projection of your body to another realm. It’s draining, and it’s dangerous.”

Cordelia’s eyes flickered to Misty and she nodded grimly, putting a hand on Cordelia’s back as they both remembered the pain of their own experiences.

“But she’s alone down there.”

“Mallory is strong. And she has you with her,” Cordelia indicated their joined hands, “ _trust_ her.”

Time passed in agonising increments and they all sat and watched Mallory’s unmoving form. After perhaps half an hour, or an eternity in Michael’s case, she inhaled slowly and blinked.

“Jesus fucking Christ, don’t ever do that to me again.” Michael pulled her up and gripped her so tightly she thought she might bruise. “Where did you go?”

Mallory clutched his shoulders and breathed shallowly but words still seemed beyond her. Misty stepped forward and wrapped her shawl around the girl’s shaking form.

“Give her a minute.”

He held her, so relieved to have her back and unharmed. He wanted to kiss her but not with Misty and Cordelia watching. Mallory pulled away after the shock had worn off. She still looked like she might pass out, but she turned when Cordelia said her name.

“… What did you see?”

Mallory swallowed and stuttered until she could speak clearly.

“Death.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **My babies were gonna bang but then Mallie started crying and I was like 'okay then'????**
> 
> **Please leave me your theories! I have a basic idea sketched out in my head of how all this is going to go down but your insights always help!**
> 
> **I love u guys and I never ever ever ever get tired of reading your comments xxxx ******


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **shoutout to Codylangdon for suggesting the girlfriend conversation be had. I did twist it a bit to fit it in but I hope you like it xx ******

Mallory had told only Cordelia about her vision, but it haunted her and kept her thoughts occupied for days. Together they had been unable to decipher it and Mallory didn’t want to tell anyone else about the troubling things she had seen. She didn’t want to cause worry especially with Michael though he had asked her gently many times what she had seen. He was terribly curious and grievously concerned. And maybe he should have been…

In hell a white-faced demon had waited at the end of the upstairs hall. He had taken Mallory’s hand and led her to one of the decaying rooms of Robichaux. Upon the bed she saw her own body, decorated with cut flowers and posed to be smiling in her sleep. Mallory had stifled her cry of horror and turned to Sybil, unwilling to step further into the room. The demon had moved over to the corpse and was arranging the flowers.

“ _Your ascension.”_ Sybil’s ghost had said.

“I don’t understand.”

“ _Your choice is here…”_ She deposited two coins into Mallory’s hand. _“Your death. Or many others. It’s up to you.”_

The demon weaved roses into dead Mallory’s hair. She stared down at the worn coins that clinked together gently in her hand.

“When I ascend, Cordelia will die. I have to take her place…” Mallory trailed off unsure. She’d never been so confused in her life and the longer she stayed the less sense Sybil seemed to make. A sudden startling realisation that this was no longer Sybil she was talking to made the shade immediately disappear.

Alone with the demon in the room he beckoned her closer, gesturing for her coins. She tried to hand them over but he took her hand and guided them down to the corpse.

_Pay_ , a disembodied voice whispered.

She placed a coin over each of her eyes and looked up at Death’s grinning face.

And that was when Mallory woke from the spell.

It had been easy to ignore the terrible things that were happening until then. Now every moment Mallory waited in dread of the next attack or bad news of Cordelia’s health. Michael had informed their Supreme of the Satanists supposed plan to draw her out and so she had imposed a ban on the Coven that no one left without permission and the company of a senior witch.

Unfortunately Mallory couldn’t just sit in the dark brooding forever. Life trudged ever onwards and her friends dragged her back to classes and routine.

“This rule is the worst.” Madison was even moodier now that she was confined to the limits of the house. In the living room she sat on the floor and painted her nails with Coco and Mallory lined up to have theirs done as well. “I’m so bored.”

“It’s not so bad…” Coco kicked her feet up onto the coffee table and ushered Mallory to sit down next to her. “It’s kind of like having a big sleepover.”

Mallory blinked at her.

“Coco, we already live here.”

“You know what I mean,” she whined. “God, forgive me for trying to be positive.”

Mallory spread out a blanket over the two of them and snuggled into Coco’s side.

“I don’t like waiting.”

“Well, I’m fucking sorry.” Madison said, not sounding sorry at all.

“Not for you, Madi. For whatever is going to happen with the warlocks.”

Madison capped her nail polish and blew on the drying paint.

“Guess we’ll find out sooner or later. Those useless pricks haven’t taken us down for centuries, why start now?”

She wiggled her fingers and offered the box of colours to Coco and Mallory.

“Oooh pink, please.” Coco said, grabbing for the girliest, bubblegum pink colour that she always picked. “And, Mallory you worry too much! We’re safe here, Cordelia’s made sure of it.”

“I think I worry just enough, thank you very much. And I haven’t forgotten what happened to Sybil. That could happen to any of us.”

She didn’t mean to bring the mood down, but the girls looked chastised anyway. It hadn’t been her intention to make them feel guilty for enjoying this small moment, pretending that everything was fine.

“What colour for you, Mal?” Madison asked, rattling the box and deliberately, kindly ignoring her verbal trespass. Mallory leant forward and chose a green and a blue bottle but couldn’t decide. She agonised over it while Coco leant forward to let Madison begin painting hers and got back to more trivial topics.

Mallory had been like this lately, unable to make decisions over small things until it blew entirely out of proportion. Sometimes it was just getting dressed in the morning and unable to decide on the best clothing choices for the weather, or it was a hesitation in a spell that should have been second nature by now that had the whole thing falling apart. Panicky little flutters would start in her stomach and she constantly compared things in real life to that which she saw in Sybil’s hell. She had thrown all of the coins out of her purse, agitated by the rattle, and hadn’t cut fresh flowers from the garden for almost a week. So far no one had noticed how off she was, or if they had they knew better than to bring it up.

Madison took her hands when she finished Coco’s and Mallory tried to steady them from their near constant shaking nowadays. Madison decides on the bright, shamrock green for her.

“Jeez, you need some whiskey.” She said, trapping Mallory’s hand to her knee. “Lighten up, Mal.” And then uncharacteristically soft, “… it’s okay.”

From behind them two sets of footsteps echoed into the room and they heard Misty coo over Coco’s nails.

“Oh wow! Will you do mine next?”

Madison sighed and tried to pretend she was bothered but couldn’t hold back her smile.

“Sure.” They all looked up at the towering figure who had entered with Misty. “You want yours done too, Michael?”

The boy took a seat next to Mallory and smiled.

“Maybe next time.”

“Tsk. You hear that Mallory? Your boyfriend must be pretty secure in his masculinity.” Coco said offhandedly and no one in the room even blinked but Mallory startled so badly the two on either side of her looked over in shock. Madison hissed at her and finished up.

“What?”

“N-nothing.” Mallory tried to play it off. She doesn’t know what shocks her more, thinking of Michael as her _boyfriend_ or that everyone else seemed to know it before she did. She glanced nervously at Michael but his face was carefully composed.

“Honey, c’mon.” Coco kept digging Mallory’s grave for her. “You guys aren’t even subtle anymore.”

It’s probably true. With the way he had put an arm around her automatically after he sat down and she hadn’t even noticed, and in the way her hands had suddenly stopped shaking when she felt him close by. Her quiet ‘ _oh’_ silenced them all, and Misty wisely picked up on the energy and changed the subject.

In the ensuing small talk and light-hearted conversation, Michael withdrew his arm sheepishly and worried his hands in his lap. His nervousness the result of having read that she was displeased with the term and therefore with him. It’s not that she minded, not at all. It’s that their romance wasn’t just their secret anymore, not that they had obviously been trying too hard to hide it. She was not at all ashamed of him. Despite who he was and what he represented the Coven had already proven they would protect him as their own. Because underneath it all he was just a boy. Her Michael, sweet and thoughtful and so handsome it made her breath catch. Mallory’s heart suddenly felt two sizes too big for her chest. She carefully checked her nails were dry then reached over and took his hand, holding it tightly. That nauseous anxiety that had been weighing on her chest for the past week started to alleviate. He looked over at her and she thought of her vision and all that it could mean. It was easy in the end for Mallory to decide then that if she had to, she would die for him.

X

Cordelia is getting worse. Each day brings sharp new pains - in her feet with each step, in her chest muscles when she breathes, even her neck aches with the weight of holding her head upright to appear normal. Misty keeps close every day, tending to new injuries when they appear despite the fact that they never heal. In front of the mirror Misty presses a hand over her protruding hipbone and grimaces at her.

“Oh, Delia.”

Cordelia takes the hand away from her sickly figure and presses it to her face instead. She’s shivering standing there in her underwear until Misty helps her into a dress. She’s wearing looser, more comfortable cuts today. She’s still elegant and regal but she feels shame at her withered appearance and tries to avoid the concerned gazes from her girls.

Misty is buttoning her dress at the neck and reaching for a hairbrush when Mallory knocks and enters. They greet each other softly, Cordelia’s face lighting up at the sight of her.

“How are you?”

“Still anxious.” She admits readily, she doesn’t keep anything from Cordelia anymore. “But feeling better than I have been.”

Cordelia moves to sit at her vanity so Misty can brush her hair and beckons Mallory further into the room.

“There’s something on your mind. Tell me.” Misty keeps quiet during their exchange but pays attention. They all ignore the too many strands of hair that keep falling out of the brush.

“I was thinking about descensum, and what it could mean for us. Michael is more skilled than I am, and with…” She swallowed, trying to bring the words to life. “With how I’m going to become Supreme…”

Misty’s mouth pulled down sadly and she put the brush down, beginning to put Cordelia’s hair up.

“Yes.” Cordelia prompted.

“Maybe… maybe he could… bring you back.”

“You’re assuming I’ll end up in hell?”

Mallory jumped and started to correct herself but Cordelia laughed.

“It’s not true, not _all_ witches go to hell, but most. And I’m certain Fiona is there.” A beat passed and Misty and Cordelia looked at each other in the mirror, remembering. “But I wouldn’t presume where I will end up.”

“But he could bring you back, we both could. We could find you, _save_ you!”

“Mallory, my love.” The young girl came closer and knelt by her feet. “It’s not worth the hope.”

“You are, Delia. Don’t say that.” Misty said, tears in her eyes. She pushed a final pin into her hair and let Cordelia go.

“Thank you, Mallory. For trying. But I’m certain it wouldn’t work. We’ve played God many times in deciding who gets to live and die. It is part of the gift of magic, but there are some things that are too big for even us to alter. We cannot change the course of the Supreme. We mustn’t try.”

“But, we could-“

“No.” She cuts her off sharply. Cordelia doesn’t want to give any of them false hope, having seen the way Fiona desperately tried to fight her fate and still failed.

“Okay.” Mallory rises, dejected knowing she would be unable to persuade her.

Cordelia hadn’t meant to hurt the girl’s feelings, but honest to god she was so tired. Just so, so tired. Some days lately the only person she could stand to be around was Misty because she was the only one she didn’t have to put on a brave face for.

The room fell silent and Mallory dismissed herself wordlessly. Cordelia fought against the black spots dancing in her vision.

“Should I go after her?” Misty asked quietly.

“No… she will be alright. She needs to come to terms with it.”

Misty helped her up but she suddenly felt like she couldn’t take another step.

“Could you take my hair down please? I’m sorry. I need to rest.”

Misty helped her over to the bed and undid her intricate work without hesitation. Settling Cordelia down and lying beside her.

“I’m not ready for you to go." Misty whispered. "I just got you back.”

“Not you too.” Cordelia groaned, pulling her closer. “Please let’s just rest, let’s just have this moment together and not think about the next.”

Time ticked away regardless.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **;_; my gal pals misty and cordy will have their happy, lovey dovey ending if you have to wrench it from my cold dead hands**
> 
> **I PROMISE I'LL STOP WRITING ANGST NEVER**
> 
> **smut next chapter... stay with me guys... ******


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I can't believe this turned out as long as it did omg but as promised........**
> 
> **also I accidentally changed tense halfway through the chapter which made me tear my hair out trying to fix it so please disregard inconsistencies I may have missed. consider it my quirky author's style idk ******

Michael’s door is ajar when Mallory gets to his room at the end of the day and he is staring puzzled at his walls holding a collection of polaroid images Misty had taken. Michael turns to her and smiles sheepishly.

“How do you put these up?”

Mallory fetches some tape from her room and pulls his desk chair out so she can stand and start decorating his walls.

“It’s about time you did this. Your room is super boring.”

Pink dusts across his cheekbones but he smiles.

“I know.”

“I’ll get you some fairy lights too.”

The photos were of himself and all different members of the Coven. Family photos, really. Some of the goofier ones make her giggle like the time they braided his hair or when Coco gave him a broomstick for his birthday, calling him an ‘honorary witch’. There were some sweet ones of Mallory with him as well, more than she realised. One of them together in the garden mid-conversation and looking peaceful catches her attention for more than a few moments. Misty had started taking photos of Cordelia for historical purposes as well as personal and had expanded her new hobby to the whole Coven, creating precious mementos for them all. Mallory made a note to thank her.

She fixates on one of them all together with Cordelia and she inhales when she sees the noticeable difference in her health, even just weeks apart from when the image was taken. Michael looks up to see which one she had paused at and grimaces with her, pressing his fingertips to her ankle bone. When they were done he holds out a hand to help her down. Standing so close to him she automatically leans in and hugs him.

“This whole thing sucks.”

“Wow, that’s harsh. I thought we did a good job.” He says jokingly, resting his chin on her head.

“You know what I mean.”

“Yeah, I do.”

Mallory sighs and holds him for a few more moments before he pulls back.

“Do you want to talk about-”

“No.” She leans up on her toes and impulsively catches his earlobe between her teeth. Michael sucks in a breath and immediately moves to steady her waist.

“Mallie…” His voice quickly grows hoarse. She plucks at the buttons of his waistcoat after she pushes his jacket from his shoulders.

“We have time. I want you _now_.” She whispers between kisses to the shell of his ear. He groans a little and she hooks her fingers into his belt when he moves to kiss her hard, clacking their teeth together a little in his enthusiasm.

He was still concerned about what had happened during the descensum spell that she had yet to share with him, but hadn’t pushed her and for that she was grateful. She’d also been moody all day because of her argument with Cordelia the night before but she and Michael had talked it out in notes during a particularly boring history class. Right now they both needed a distraction, and she’s feeling appreciative.

“Let me close the door,” he pants between kisses.

Mallory broke away from him and went to lie invitingly on the bed. She pulls her flower crown off and sets it on his bedside table like it belongs there. Michael comes back and catches her feet and pulls down the zips of her knee high boots. Her skin felt over-sensitised already and she could feel herself growing wet just when he brushed the skin behind her knee rolling her stockings down. He kicks off his own shoes, landing in a forgotten, expensive clatter on the floor and climbs on top of her at her prompting. She loves it when he rests his weight on her, it makes her feel warm and safe and breathless in the best way. Cradling him between her legs and putting pressure where she needed him helped too.

His mouth moves back to hers and keeps her occupied. The first time she taught him French kissing she realised she was done for and he would never be sated. While she is distracted he moves his hands between them to unwrap her belt. Mallory arches her back so he can slide it from beneath her and the contact with his chest made her nipples harden. Suddenly she ached for touch.

“Please,” she gasps into his mouth. Confusion turns his brows and she arches her back again until he gets the hint. “Touch me.”

His hand went immediately to her breast and he slid his thumb over her nipple, a trick he had learnt a while ago when kissing her between the stacks in the library. It always makes her whine a little and squirm deliciously. He presses a kiss to her sternum and dares to slide his hand into the v-neck of her dress to feel her.

The softness of it amazes him, coupled with the hard peak that he strokes over and over. Mallory’s eyes squeeze shut in pleasure and she parts her legs wider, totally making their kiss fall apart when she is too distracted to respond to him.

“My dress…” She says as she pushes him slightly away to reach for the hidden zipper at her side. He helps her tug it above her head, enchanted with the way it messes up her hair and bares her form to him. He's holding it, unsure if throwing it on the floor would incite her before she snatches it from his hands and does it herself, making him smirk.

His angel wears white underwear and she looks so fucking pretty he can't speak. Impulsively he reaches out and touches his fingers against the lacy material to feel if it is as soft as it looks and she squeaks. Moving his mouth back to her skin he pushes her down into his pillows until her brown hair halos around her. She slides the straps of her bralette off her shoulders and guides him down with a fistful of his silky hair. He closes his mouth around her nipple and rolls it with his talented tongue.

“Oh, t-that’s nice,” she praises. He smiles up at her and she runs a thumb over his blush. When he pulls away he watches fascinated as her skin pebbles over again in the cold air. He leaves wet biting kisses across her breasts, trying to leave as many marks as he could knowing she would be able to hide these.

It isn’t long before he realises he can smell her and he pulls away to look down, captivated. Her wetness makes the thin material of her panties cling to her and he swallows hard.

“Do you want me to-”

“Yes,” she says too quickly, “yes.”

Michael sits back on his heels and hooks his fingers into the sides of her panties to pull them away. A string of arousal follows and he groans at the sight of her, soft pink and glistening.

“Fuck, Mallie. You’re so pretty.” He swears her blush goes all the way down to her abused nipples. She moves a hand to her throat nervously as if to check her own pulse. He’s compelled to lean forward and kiss her nerves away.

Mallory’s legs jerk when he smooths his hand down her thigh so he repeats the movement, trying to soothe her until the muscles lose their tension. When she starts to breathe deeper and gives him a nod he presses his trembling fingers to her.

Michael tries to hold back a curse but he’s moved by the soft, wet feel of her. He takes his time exploring and gauges her reactions by watching her face closely.

“Is that good?” He whispers self-consciously when she bites her lip.

“Mhmm.” He realises with clarity that he was wearing too many clothes. He’s starting to sweat and straining uncomfortably against the fabric of his trousers. But he presses the heel of his palm impatiently to himself and focuses on finding where Mallory likes to be touched.

Experimentally he slides his finger down to her entrance and traces slow circles, gathering more of that slickness until she whines. He dips his finger inside and watches her body react, eyelashes fluttering.

It’s overwhelmingly warm, tight and inviting. She lets him explore lazily, only reprimanding him lightly with a quiet ‘ _slower’_ once for moving a bit too ambitiously. With one pointed look from her he pushes another finger inside.

“Curl them,” she gasps and grips his sheet hard when he obeys. She melts around him, bones dissolving in pleasure and tilts her hips restlessly. Michael leans up and lays his other hand to her hips to hold her down while he drags against her inner walls. He’d never felt control like this before and it's powerful to see her surrender to him, and for him to be able to give her what she needs. It affects him so badly he doesn’t really know what she expects next until she shows him.

Mallory reaches down and guides his stray thumb to her slippery clit, getting it wet and helping him find the pattern. He would have fingernail marks in the flesh of his hand from how she directs him but all he could think about was the look on her face, the way she’s panting and the way she whispers,

“ _Harder.”_

From where she had been boneless before her muscles start building tension again and Michael watches her belly jump. It’s hard to tell the difference really between the body’s reactions to pleasure and pain, so he keeps checking in with her, asking if she’s okay and each time without getting impatient she grates out a _yes._

It builds and builds and he can hear the way she gets closer in the height of her voice, her ragged breathing and her restless hands grabbing at him, his hair, the bed. He feels dizzy trying to keep up with her demanding, shifting body and listening to her string of babbling, desperate commands.

“Kiss me, Michael, please.” Mallory begs, voice breaking and edging higher as the tension breaks in her belly. He does just as she tightens all over and lets out a sweet, high keen into his mouth, fluttering and pulsing around his steady fingers. A sob shudders out of her and he feels her dripping past his fingers to stain his bed.

He’s never been so hard in his life, but he’s not sure if they’re done yet. He feels like he needs permission to move, her nails are releasing their grip on his hand but she’s too busy trying to get her breath back to notice his distress.

Michael can’t hold in a quiet pained groan and her eyes flash up and she beams at him. He withdraws his hand and Mallory sits up and presses a kiss to his chin, pulling away his tie and starting to undo the buttons at his throat. It feels like a gift that she wants to do this for him. His whole chest swells with gratitude and he hurries to help her.

She leaves him to his shirt and he yelps when she presses the heel of her hand to his cock. Dragging in slow circles over his suit pants she watches him fall apart, breathing heavily and trembling above her.

“There… is that better?” He’s so completely unable to respond right now and Mallory knows it, she’s teasing him. He nods enthusiastically anyway, pushing his hips into the pressure. He’s abandoned his task so she removes her hand and finishes pushing away his shirt, he whimpers at the loss of her hand but she’s hurrying now. She’s got her hands on his belt and is prying it loose when a knock sounds at the door and they freeze.

Mallory practically falls off the bed in a rush to get to her dress and pull it over her head. The minute the fabric settles around her she transmutes out of there so fast it makes his head spin.

Michael stumbles off the bed and cracks the door open to Zoe. He angles his body so that he can hide the evidence of his arousal.

“Yeah?” His voice cracks embarrassingly but he doesn’t care if he sounds rude, he’s preoccupied with the ache Mallory left him.

“I’m looking for Mallory. Have you seen her?” Zoe keeps carefully composed despite the fact he is half naked in front of her and looks clearly in the middle of something. She’s trying to hide a smile, certain she’s caught them in the act.

Michael clears his throat and gestures down the hall.

“Uh, she just left. Try her room?” He honestly doesn’t even know what he’s saying, he has whiplash from the turn of events.

“Thanks, I must have just missed her.” Zoe says, turning away with a smile. Michael swears her shoulders are shaking with laughter when she walks away but he closes the door and groans miserably.

He’s still fucking hard and now he’s alone. He tips his head back and breathes hard, gripping himself through his trousers. Drawing a hand over his mouth he starts when he realises he can still smell his angel's scent on his fingers and it’s intoxicating.

Mallory was gone so quickly in her panic he doesn’t know if he should expect her back. He lies down on the bed anyway and finishes undoing his belt. After more empty minutes he slips his hand down into his underwear and starts stroking himself slowly, just to take the edge off.

That’s how Mallory finds him when she appears back in his room. He has his hand pressed to his mouth and eyes closed in pleasure.

“Let me.” She whispers and he blinks wide, blue eyes up at her. Climbing onto his bed she settles on her knees between his legs and finishes undoing his pants and pulling him free. Her eyes trace over his neck where the tendons strain as he looks down at her.

Mallory’s not seen this part of him before and she wants to take her time exploring, sliding a finger down his length and watching his eyes roll back.

“I didn’t know… if you’d come back.”

“Of course.” She gently starts to move her hand up and down experimentally. Michael wraps a hand around hers and shows her the firm twisting rhythm he prefers.

“Is everything alright?” It’s hard to think about anything other than the way she’s touching him but he doesn’t think he could survive another interruption.

“Yes,” she breathes into his neck and laves a kiss onto his skin. “Don’t worry.”

Mallory scratches her pretty green nails down his chest with her free hand and he jolts when she catches his nipple. He’s really sweating now, hair sticking to his temples. He makes small, abortive movements of his hips, embarrassed by the way he twitches in her hands and tries to swallow down his moans. Mallory keeps flicking his nipple with her thumbnail even while she passes her other hand over the head of his cock, smearing the fluid beading there down and around.

“Mallie,” he pants. “Mallie, please…”

“Yes, Michael?” She purrs into his cheek, leaning over him and she’s surrounding him, he can smell her hair and her come smeared on his face from his hand and he’s going to beg.

“I need… please, I need…”

“I know, baby.” She hushes him and speeds up her hand. It doesn’t take long at all before that exquisite tension in his spine snaps and he curls into himself, coming with a long, drawn out moan. He spills hot and wet over her hand.

He doesn’t think he’s ever come that hard in his life. His vision is dancing with black spots and he looks up reverently at his angel studying the mess on her hand. Delicately she uses the edge of her white dress to wipe it away and his cock gives one last interested pulse at the image.

“Fuck.”

His cursing always makes her grin proudly. She does like the effect she has on him. Carefully she drapes herself down over him and kisses him hard. Mallory cards a hand through his tangled hair and settles herself down over his warm body, enjoying the new contact with his bare skin.

Michael breaks away eventually, still needing his breath back and pulls his angel even closer.

“Was it good?” He asks bashfully. It makes her smile into the skin of his chest.

“ _So_ good.” She kisses his chin and settles down again feeling sleepy and content with his hand tracing up and down her spine.

“Please don’t leave again.” He says it so quietly she mishears him at first. But then looks up at his face with his wide, sad eyes betraying all his insecurities and understands.

“I won’t.”

Michael turns into her and his anxiety melts away. They’re both messy, barely dressed but she’s warm and doesn’t have the energy to move. A trembling certainty builds in her soul and makes her chest hurt. The feeling that he belongs to her, the way he makes her feel, the way he looks at her and cares for her. Mallory loves him, that’s the pure, aching truth of it.

He drops off to sleep quickly after that and she’s left to wonder at this new, good kind of hurt.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **Mallory honey you can't just use 'appreciative' as a synonym for horny**
> 
> **and we're accidentally big on our emotional revelations (tm) again**
> 
> **coitus interruptus just for the lols and bc I love to torture Michael**
> 
> **more drama coming soon stay tuned xx ******


	14. Chapter 14

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **haha oops ******

There’s no warning before the blade is at her throat. Mallory instinctively jerks her head away from the sharp edge and Zoe drops the bowl she had been holding in shock. It shatters on the kitchen floor. For a few heartbeats no one moves.

Out of the corner of Mallory’s eye she can see the girl is dressed in black, one of their own.

“Lila…” Zoe’s voice is gentle and she takes baby steps closer to the two girls standing on the other side of the room. “Lila, what are you doing?”

A face comes to Mallory’s mind, the same face she presumes is behind her. Tan skin, freckles and lovely green eyes. Mallory had followed Zoe into the kitchen to continue their conversation about Cordelia’s health while Zoe started to prep for dinner. Neither of them had heard the student sneak up on them, and certainly had not expected an attack from one of their own. Lila was one of their newer students but had been around long enough, maybe half a year. Mallory can’t reason what might have inspired this other than their latest, perpetual danger, but it doesn’t make sense, how could they have gotten to her?

But Mallory can’t think anymore when that deadly steel presses again into her neck leaving small, itchy cuts. She tries very hard to fight the impulse to swallow. Lila still does not say a word and true, instinctive panic starts to rise in Mallory.

Zoe thinks of a name, screams it really and hopes someone hears her psychic cry. She doesn’t dare raise a hand to the girl when Lila is only hesitating because she is fighting whatever spell she’s under. Her eyes are glazed, almost white.

It happens very suddenly, there’s a spray of blood as Mallory’s throat is just beginning to be cut, and then Lila is thrown back and pinned to the wall behind them. Zoe is pretty sure she hears herself scream and Mallory falls to the ground. Circling around the counters she comes to Mallory’s side where she is gasping and holding her neck. It’s a deep cut but it hasn’t hit anything important judging by the slow gush of blood. Zoe wants to cry in relief. She focuses on putting pressure on the wound, cupping her hand around Mallory’s neck but looks up when the devil’s shiny, pointed shoes step into the pool of blood.

He crouches down and checks on Mallory but then Michael’s eyes are on the girl still trapped to the wall. His hand is outstretched holding her there and his face is murderous. Lila screams in agony when he turns his wrist, stretching her ligaments and muscles, twisting them unnaturally.

“Michael, no!” Zoe is yelling herself hoarse and a crowd is starting to gather on the outskirts of the room from the commotion. Madison runs in uncaring of the possible danger and strips off her over-shirt to hand to Zoe to press against the wound. Michael doesn’t seem to hear their cries to stop. He is almost as possessed as the girl, drunk on giving into his nature and injuring like he is compelled to. It’s only when Mallory gets her voice back and whispers so quietly he shouldn’t even hear it…

“Michael, stop.”

Immediately he drops his hand and Lila’s body crumples to the floor. His jaw is still clenched tightly but he looks down at his angel bleeding at his feet.

“Mallie, she _hurt_ you.”

But Mallory can’t respond, her eyelids are fluttering as her body goes into shock. Half the school has eyes on them and he briefly wishes Cordelia were well enough to be here to handle this with them. Michael wills his legs to move. He needs to go check on his angel, she’s bleeding on the floor and all he can see is red, red, red.

Lila stands fitfully, pulled up like a puppet on strings and her eyes are still rolled back, pale and vacant. The knife flashes in her hand. She’s rushing towards them and before he can think he’s raising his hand again and the young girl’s neck snaps like a flower stem. Her head whips back audibly and she falters mid-step, falling to the floor. There’s no effort on Michael’s part, killing has always come easily to him and it surprises him how much he has missed that sudden rush of power. At least a dozen girls are screaming now having seen their classmate’s gruesome death.

The corpse is in front of Mallory and she’s looking at Lila in horror. And then she directs that expression at Michael and his chest falls through to his feet. She’s afraid of him.

“Fuck, Michael! What have you done?” Zoe is screaming at him through sudden tears, hands still clutching Mallory’s throat and the both of them saturated in blood. What had been a normal day five minutes ago has been thrown into such complete chaos that his head starts spinning. He’d heard Zoe scream for him and had transmuted downstairs so fast that he hadn’t really had a moment to think about what was really happening other than _danger_ and _someone is hurt._

The next few moments black out for him but he remembers brief flashes. Myrtle’s leopard print glove grasping his elbow and pulling him through a crowd of grieving young girls. Glancing back at Mallory’s form in black and red on the ground and aching to turn back. On the wooden stairs seeing the sickening contrast of the bloody footprints he’s leaving on the pale floor.

Then Misty’s face when she opens the door to Cordelia’s room.

“It’s over.” Myrtle says, pushing Michael inside and directing him to the sitting room.

“She’s still not awake. I shouldn’t have locked the door, I should have helped but I…”

“It’s alright, Misty. Cordelia still needs protection too, now more than ever. And we have Mallory to worry about too, we should have organised better security for her.”

Michael blinked. _Wasn’t that why Zoe had called for him? Isn’t he supposed to protect Mallory? Why was he even up here, he should be with her…_

“How did they get in?” Misty asked.

“Through one of our own. God, we should have prepared for this. How naïve of us.”

“Is everyone alright?” Misty’s face falls at Myrtle’s answering expression. As she explains the mess downstairs they look over to the blonde boy staining the white furniture. Michael’s considerably calmer now. He just wants to leave and check on Mallory. But Myrtle and Misty are looking at him strangely, like they don’t know him.

“Michael… Was it an accident? What you did to Lila…” Myrtle broaches carefully.

He swallows and answers truthfully.

“No.”

“You shouldn’t have killed the girl.” Myrtle whispered.

“Why not?” His confusion born of sudden panic at the realisation he’s done something wrong is twisting into something ugly, something angry. For too long now he’s been hearing that killing is _wrong_ but no one will tell him _why_. The girl had hurt Mallory and had tried to hurt her again. He’d stopped her. It was simple to him.

“She was one of our own. And it wasn’t her fault.”

“Then what do you call that gash in Mallory’s neck? A fucking accident?” He’s rising now and unconsciously using his height to his advantage to tower over the witches.

“She was possessed, Michael. That was still Lila underneath that spell.”

Be that as it may he couldn’t have known that at the time and his instinct had been to kill. No matter their reasoning he didn’t regret it. Before he could argue with them again Cordelia entered, supporting herself against the walls with tired, fragile hands.

“What’s happened?” She gasped.

Misty and Myrtle filled her in with the broken details and Michael remained silent waiting for judgement. His feet ached to run, to go downstairs and check that Mallory wasn’t still bleeding out on the floor. He could sense her magic, that lovely bright white energy. As long as that was still there she was alive.

But then Cordelia was looking at him with that same look. Disappointment maybe, but like she was looking at a stranger. Suddenly he couldn’t stand it any longer and rushed out of the room. The witches called out after him but he didn’t stop. Michael followed his footprint trail back downstairs and then followed Mallory’s magic signature to the front door where the girls still had cloth tamped to her neck and his angel stood pale and swaying. The girls argued over the top of each other, all hovering around the injured witch.

“It won’t stop bleeding.”

“We need to take her to the hospital.”

“Keep pressure on that Coco, goddamn it.”

“The car is coming, just fucking chill out.”

The women fluttered nervously around her but Mallory looked to him amongst them all. Stilling and blinking at his appearance. Her black lace gown was saturated and her flower headband had been knocked askew but she looked composed despite having lost so much blood.

“Mallory…” Her expression halted his feet and she didn’t say a word to him. It wasn’t the same look that Cordelia had turned on him but it was similar and tinged with fear. She swallowed nervously and turned away. Michael watched her descend the front steps with the witches and enter the town car without looking back.

Something hurts in his heart like when she had left him on the library floor – it’s compressing his chest down into a too tight space. It’s all falling apart in front of him, by a simple action, one careless flick of his wrist to save Mallory and in doing so he may have lost her.

Outside it is quiet and the trees sway in the breeze. Standing in the open front door watching the car pull away Michael feels very much alone.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***sigh* goddamn it why can't they just be happy??? don't ask me???**
> 
> **aka author kills another OC for plot devices o_o ******


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **another update??? so soon??? you guys are spoilt.**
> 
> **but also I love you thanks for coming to my party let's all cry together ;_; ******

In the car on the way to the funeral Michael doesn’t say a word to anyone.

Since Mallory came back from the hospital that night and went straight to her room, closing the door firmly behind her he feels as if someone cut out his tongue. She hasn’t looked at him either though she sits beside him in the car now. She’s flicking her fingernails nervously and he keeps looking at them through her lace gloves wishing he was brave enough to take her hand. Wishing she wasn’t unhappy with him so that he could without hesitation.

Mallory ducks out of the car before he can offer a hand to help her out. Michael follows her, keeping measured steps behind her. She’s been upset at him before, he’s trying desperately to tell himself he can handle this. That it will take time.

It’s still agony though, the waiting. He focuses on one breath after the other and is grateful that she is even there, alive in front of him. Looking elegant in her mourning gown, veiled and lovely, except for the bright square bandage decorating her neck.  

They bury Lila beside Sybil in one of New Orleans’s older cemeteries the witches still have access to. Around them is a history of their kind, dating far enough back that the stones have almost weathered away all detail. Oaks dripping with Spanish moss give them shade in the warm morning and he takes his place beside and slightly behind Mallory.

She cries at the end as Myrtle wraps up the service, swiping roughly at her eyes under the veil. The lace gloves must be abrasive on her skin so Michael bravely presses his pocket handkerchief into Mallory’s hand. She takes it with a quiet _thank you_ but still won’t turn back and look at him. It feels like a hollow sort of victory anyway.

Cordelia catches him afterwards before he can continue his stray puppy act with Mallory and he gives the ailing witch a supporting arm. He watches his angel navigate the cemetery paths with Queenie until they are out of sight. Their Supreme, if they can even call her that anymore, looks ashen and frail but still regal in her funeral gown. She too wears gloves and he wraps his other hand around hers on his elbow.

With a parasol balanced on her shoulder they are sheltered from the sun as they begin a slow walk back to the road.

“She’s not angry with you.” Cordelia begins and Michael can’t hold in a sigh. He doesn’t really want to have this conversation but he’s been expecting it.

“I know.”

“She’s afraid.”

He watches his shoes as they walk, getting scuffed by the dirt paths. There’s something very peaceful about the cemetery and being surrounded by such old, dead things. It can’t shake the feeling of self-loathing crawling under his skin though.

“I don’t want her to be.”

“Then why didn’t you stop? When we told you to?”

“I don’t know.” Truly, deep down in his bones Michael knows why. He just doesn’t want to admit it to himself that he _liked_ it. The power of tipping the scales between life and death. The control gives him a rush and the agony he is capable of inflicting is addictive. But he can't say any of this without inciting panic and hurt. His voice shakes a little to be convincing. “There was so much blood… I just couldn’t think.”

“Michael it was wrong what you did. She was one of our students. We maybe could have reversed the possession spell and brought her back to us.”

Of course the witches had straight away tried to resurrect Lila. Zoe, Madison, Misty and Cordelia had each had their turn at Vitalum Vitalis on the girl’s broken body but it had no effect. Even Mallory’s powers which had advanced from healing injuries to reversing death in the months since she learnt of it could not work on the girl. She blamed herself for being weak from her wound but there was nothing to be done. Cordelia’s theory was not that the warlocks were powerful enough to be cursing them from a distance given the wards over Robichaux, but that the Satanists were perhaps dabbling in something dark to prevent them from resurrecting their dead. Suddenly the prospect of death to the witches was something much more tangible than it had been before.

“She could have killed Mallory.”

“We don’t know that, Michael. You would have been strong enough to restrain her until we could have gotten through to her.”

They were nearing the gates but Cordelia stops and makes him look her in the eye. She’s shorter than him now that she has given up her heels but the look on her face cowers him.

“Please tell me you understand that it was wrong.”

“I do.” He swallows.

“It could have been anyone. They could have possessed Mallory. We could have been burying her today.”

It’s this statement that makes it really sink in. Because if it hadn’t been just another student, one of the ones who would giggle from behind corners at him when he first arrived thinking he was handsome. If it had been Mallory he would have stopped her, he would have held her until they could undo whatever dark magic had been wrought. Even Coco, Queenie or Madison - Michael would have hesitated.

Cordelia’s still watching him closely and she must be satisfied by the way this revelation plays out on his face. She squeezes him arm and gives him a small, kind smile.

“I’m sorry things aren’t good between you two at the moment.”

“Thank you.” He says quietly. “I don’t know if it’s something I can fix. If I should even try.”

“Just give it time.”

Michael helps Cordelia into the car just as she starts coughing violently. Before he closes the door he sees her wipe blood from her lips and he acutely feels the time she mentioned running out.

X

If anything it gets worse.

Mallory has started acknowledging his presence again. Giving polite greetings and pretending normal except that she can barely keep her eyes on him for more than a second. Her gaze seems to slide right off him like he’s something repulsive or disgusting. It makes him cranky and he’s maybe too short with her but he feels deprived. Her neglect is creating such a huge hole in his heart. No amount of formality is going to make it better.

There's an obvious, unspoken rule that Michael’s no longer allowed to kiss her, hell even touch her. He can’t sleep at night because his bed feels too empty and too soft without her. He hasn’t eaten for days and the fasting is the only thing that sharpens his mind. He gives it time like Cordelia advised but Mallory keeps her distance. It’s the hardest thing in the world to watch her go upstairs to retire to bed without inviting him. Her closed door, knowing she’s in there but not knowing what she’s thinking, it brings tears to his eyes and he mourns alone in the dark of his room.

On a particularly bad day his depression manifests and a snake slithers out from beneath his bed. It surprises more than frightens him and he quickly kills it to not create a spectacle in the house.

But Michael's growing desperate to talk to her so he finds an excuse to get Mallory to help him in alchemy. He’s never been good at this subject and she knows it. Carefully he picks his moment and quietly asks her for help in timing the addition of a tricky ingredient to his cauldron.

“You shouldn’t have cut this so thin.” Mallory indicates the burdock root and reaches for a knife to start anew. There’s still a shiny pink scar on her hand from the time she cut herself when he scared her and instinctively Michael reaches out to still her hand. For a moment the whole world falls away and his skin sings where it touches hers.

“Michael.” She whispers. She doesn’t take her hand away though. He can’t seem to move, his whole awareness has narrowed down to his fingers curling around her palm.

Her eyes are suddenly spilling over with tears and she snatches her hand back, sending the knife skittering across the bench. Mallory rushes to the back door and senselessly he follows her.

Outside she gets her breath back but each step he takes towards her she matches with a step away. They come to an awkward standstill. Every bone in his body tells him to go nearer her to offer comfort but it’s useless knowing she will refuse it. There’s fear in her eyes again and he hates it. Hates himself so suddenly the whiplash makes him light-headed.

Mallory wraps her arms around herself, circling her little jewelled belt that cinches her silk dress to her curves. Over the railing she looks out over the garden which flourishes, so green in the midday sun and so beautiful.

“I saw you.” She gasps. It’s the beginning of the first real conversation they’ve had in weeks. Michael doesn’t want to overstep by asking questions so he waits for her to elaborate. “Your face… it was… it wasn’t you.”

The white-faced demon. He remembers the first time he saw that side of himself in the mirror. It had frightened him to tears as a boy but now it is as much a part of him as his magic. Something that resides in him, called upon when needed. He's aware it comes out when he's angry but it's only a brief flicker, fast enough to dismiss as a visual mistake.

“It’s a part of who I am.” Michael tells her honestly, braving another step forward.

“No. No, it can’t be. I _saw_ you.”

In front of her now he places his hand beside hers on the railing but doesn’t come any closer. Mallory’s still struggling to find the words to communicate whatever it is she’s trying to tell him. She’s so distressed she’s shaking.

“In hell I saw you. It.”

Finally he realises with a start that she is telling him of what happened when they visited the underworld together. He forgets to breathe waiting for her to go on.

“It was standing over my body. Dressing it with roses. I had died... and it was going to bury me.”

Michael takes a deep breath before he faints but he can’t get the air all the way to the bottom of his lungs. He feels like he is drowning.

“That wasn’t me.”

“I thought it was a demon. It’s eyes were black. It’s face was so white. And I saw that same face in you after you killed Lila.”

His hand is gripping the railing so tightly his knuckles ache.

“The demon… it’s part of me. But what you saw in hell, Mallory, it wasn’t me.”

“I don’t know that for sure. It scared me, Michael.”

“I don’t want you to be afraid of me.” His seemingly endless tears come back.

Mallory steps closer to him and for a hopeful moment he thinks she might embrace him but she doesn’t. She turns and walks back to the house.

“I’m sorry.” Mallory whispers as she turns the door handle. She doesn’t look back.

X

That night he’s delirious. Starved and suffering – it’s finally time to beg.

On the pale floor of his room he uses his drawing charcoal to create a circle. He strikes lines through it and settles in the centre.

The lights flicker and pitch Michael into darkness. His fingers are tacky with dust but he ignores his physical discomforts and waits.

The smell of ash filters into the room and he feels heat like as if he were standing before an open fire. A snake crosses over his hand and it’s gentle hiss is echoed by many others. When Michael opens his eyes he sees true darkness.

“Father…” He implores to the void. “I need guidance.”

The void answers.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***author slaps a bandaid over resurrection theory* AHS writers I gotcha! ******
> 
> ****btw if anyone is interested I do have tumblr over here at (http://thursdayangel.tumblr.com/)****
> 
> ****If you are a millory blog I prob already stalk you so sorry not sorry****
> 
> ****Feel free to come say hi and freak out with me about this fic. It's also been real fun watching the tumblrpocalypse and being a part of this meltdown lol****
> 
> ****thanks as always for reading xxx I love you guys so much ********


	16. Chapter 16

Cordelia slips away quietly.

Dawn breaks and she breathes her last into the cool air. And then only a body remains, blonde-haired and too young and too lovely. Enclosed in soft, white linen and thin hands folded together over top.

Misty had been sleeping when it happened and so when she woke and tried to rouse Cordelia’s unnaturally still form beside her she knew deep in her heart it was too late. Her panic grows louder and louder until her grief is the only sound in the world.

X

Michael’s body falls back against the floor and disrupts the charcoal circle. The impact knocks the air from his lungs and he is momentarily breathless, but he doesn’t know this because he’s not truly there.

Michael walks the halls of hell alone except for a voice that whispers in his ear. He walks for hours, maybe days and still he does not halt until the walls start to change. The doors are a lighter colour and he begins to hear his own footsteps outside of the whispers. Whatever is beyond these doors is different too but he still has not chosen. He spares no thought to the world outside. The voice has given him a task and he no longer feels alone.

On he walks.

X

The day Cordelia dies the sun itself does not seem to rise. Hidden by ink dark clouds and fog that doesn’t lift even as the day inevitably goes on.

Zoe comes first, and then Myrtle, and then the whole hallway outside of the bedroom is crowded. The news spreads fast and the tears faster. The ones who know look to Mallory expectantly when she gets there.

As they should, because Mallory knew before any of them.

The surge of power had woken her suddenly. For a brief, disorienting moment she thought she must have been having a heart attack given the immense pressure distorting her chest, but then the euphoria came. It made the tips of her fingers tingle, her scalp crawl, it made her muscles shiver and twitch until they felt overused and weak.

The feelings passed but her body still felt half-electrified. Automatically she reached over to wake Michael and her heart sank when she skimmed the empty sheets and realised he wasn’t beside her. It was her own fault really. She had brought this absence on herself and she can’t even really tell herself _why_.

Mallory has never been in love before, but she knows enough to know it hurts.

She’s wasted time on romance novels and watched sugary romcoms with Coco and her old school friends but never really been moved by the idea of love. And the narratives are all the same. Yet if Mallory had to smash apart her life and fit it into the idea of a film’s love story there’d still be sharp edges. Pieces that didn’t work together. Pieces that reflect Michael and herself, human and flawed yet wonderful.

She misses him so much it’s like he’s died, and it’s all her own fault because she can’t bring herself to be near him right now when all she can think about is that deathly white face. Watching Michael from afar reveals that he is no better off without her by his side. He presents well but she recognises those dark shadows under his eyes, the way he tenses his jaw, the glossy sheen of unshed tears when he thinks she doesn’t notice. She notices them because she sees all of these symptoms of loss in herself.

These thoughts come around the same time she hears Misty screaming. Mallory berates herself for being self-involved and wallowing in her own misery. She rises shakily out of bed to throw on a dressing gown and races outside. There’s a tiny part of her that knows what to expect given what's happened but the rest of her is in denial. It was undeniably the passing over of power from one Supreme to another. But there’s no way Cordelia could be gone yet. There hadn’t been enough time.

There was never enough time.

X

Michael hasn’t come down despite the news of the Coven’s loss, but hardly anyone notices his absence in the complete turmoil that overcomes the academy.

Mallory notices of course but assumes he is grieving in his own way. She doesn’t dare disturb him though she wants to. She wants so badly to knock gently at his door and for him to open it, hair mussed and tearful and he would pull her inside and wrap her in his arms and she thinks maybe if she was pressed there against his chest she might be able to breathe and they’d forgive each other and everything could maybe be okay…

But it doesn’t happen because there are suddenly things that need to be done. People that need to be comforted. Duties that need to be passed on. Distances that must be kept.

It’s simultaneously the shortest and longest day of their lives. Misty with help prepares the body, cleaning it and redressing it. Myrtle admirably handles the absolute fall out of the school, speaking individually to all of the teachers and as many students as she could while coping with the loss herself.

Zoe is inconsolable and they cannot reach her through her grief. Kyle is quickly called and he goes immediately to her, bypassing everyone to get to his love. His haste makes Mallory’s chest hurt in a longing kind of way. But mostly she feels numb to it all. Physically she still feels as if she has been struck by lightning, but at the same time completely hollowed out, scraped open and raw like the slightest touch could eviscerate her.

Her first instinct is of course to talk to Cordelia about it but she can’t. And she never will again. So she keeps it all in to maintain a brave face and just hopes it doesn’t consume her from the inside out before the end of the day.

Because the worst is yet to come. As sunset approaches the house turns black, lights that haven’t been turned on make the home already shrouded in darkness almost frightening in its strangeness. Mallory navigates the unlit corridors by habit to Cordelia’s room where Misty stays by the bedside.

There’s a single candelabra lit and the shadows it casts make Misty’s face severe. The corpse is beautifully laid out, dressed in white like a bride but decorated with black ribbon and far too pale for any kind of illusion.

“Misty.” Mallory says. It’s not a question, not even a greeting really. The older witch looks up at her.

“Does she look alright, do you think?”

It’s hard to look at Cordelia. It’s even harder to pretend Misty isn’t harbouring a bit of hatred towards Mallory because of what she has now become. That her very existence is responsible for the woman they all loved lying dead. Mallory bypasses the bed and goes over to the window where she can see her garden.

“Yes. She looks lovely.”

“Myrtle said there was an undertaker coming.” She clutches the edge of Cordelia’s gown in distress.

“Not until tomorrow, I don’t think.”

“And that we’ll bury her in the cemetery, but not near her mother. Delia wouldn’t have wanted that…” Misty is barely even talking to Mallory anymore, consoling herself with the thought of action. It must be unbearable to just sit there waiting.

Mallory watches a hooded figure enter the garden and stop by the roses. The person looks up at her and sees her despite the low light. A chill runs down Mallory’s spine and the sudden gift of knowledge, of knowing what to do cuts through her. It’s the first thing she’s felt all day.

She turns back to Misty and the corpse and is struck by the déjà vu.

“I’ll get some roses. For her hair.”

Misty nods and doesn’t watch her leave.

X

One of the doors leads to a labyrinth.

That voice that isn’t quite a voice tells Michael that he must make it to the centre to find the answers he seeks.

The hedges are tall and dark, visible only by whatever ethereal light exists in this world. There is no sun above and only a deep blue sky, if it can even be called that.

If he looks too closely it shifts disconcertingly. Michael keeps his eyes on the path ahead and begins his journey.

X

There’s a quiet hum of cicadas in the evening air. The fog that lingered in the morning did not stray far and casts a veil over the garden.

The witch steps down from the house and navigates the garden path in the moonlight, keeping an eye on her ankle boots to not misstep. The figure lingers by the roses and cuts one, examining it closely.

When Mallory approaches she sees the person is an older woman with jet black hair and bright blue eyes.

_…. very blue eyes like yours, Michael…_

She wears a black hooded robe and a sly smile. In her hand is an impressive looking blade that she shears the rose petals with.

“This was all about you, wasn’t it?” The woman asks.

Mallory is taken aback. There’s a purpose here in this conversation, something that Sybil had  been trying to tell her. Something fateful.

“Are you here for Michael?”

The head of the rose clips off and lands with a whisper on the ground. The woman steps closer, black robes stirring around her and blurring in the fog.

“Yes. To put him back on his path.”

“That’s not for you to decide. He made his choice.”

“No he didn’t! You made it for him, when you _bitches_ interfered. We had grand plans, my boy and I.”

Mallory doesn’t say a word to this. She’s starting to feel afraid of the woman and the glint in her eye. There’s no Cordelia to go running to now. She must solve her own problems. A nausea burns in her gut but she pushes through and refocuses on the danger in front of her.

“He was prophesized,” the woman continues, “the end times will come, and we will all burn.”

“I won’t let you take him.” Vertigo comes upon Mallory slowly and her vision grows even dimmer. The young witch reaches out a hand and grips the shrub beside her, splitting her skin on the thorns.

Ms. Mead reaches behind her back and reveals a small, glowing amulet and Mallory feels faint from the loss of power.

“A gift from the warlocks. I’ll tell them you didn’t appreciate it. You witches were always ungrateful to them.”

The words drop in and out of Mallory’s hearing and she struggles to stand upright. She’s distracted by the shine of the woman's teeth as she approaches.

"I won't let you take him," Mallory repeats, gasping desperately. There’s a ringing in her ears like bells, like coins clinking together.

The knife slides into her and punctures something vital and life-giving. Blood pours from the wound when the woman pulls the knife back and it runs dark and slick over Mallory's dress.

 _Oh._ She must say it aloud, it makes the woman’s grin wider. _Oh._

Foamy blood fills her mouth and her knees hit the ground. Mallory falls into the dirt and Ms. Mead cleans the blood from her dagger and steps over the dying girl.

X

Michael feels a jolt down his spine from where he is deep in the underworld. Something sharp stabs into his diaphragm and he knows that something is very, very wrong.

Panic grips him and he knows he must leave this place but he is lost. In his madness he takes handfuls of leaves and tears them apart but it only reveals more of that infinite blue space. Magic fails him and he is powerless. His hands are bleeding and he doesn’t even know why.

“Father,” he slides to the ground, “I must go.”

A million voices whisper and titter at him. One of them laughs. Another screams.

“Please... let me leave...”

This time there is no one there to hear him. He pulls himself up and starts running.

X

Mallory bleeds out in the garden surrounded by her beautiful living things. Her powers come back as the woman gets farther away with whatever cursed charm she wielded, but it’s not enough. Pressing her hands to the wound to keep pressure makes her gasp in pain but she pushes through it and tries to undo the harm. It starts and stops and it can’t fight the pulse of blood that leaves her. It’s too late. The soil around her is soaked and she feels herself growing lighter and pain free.

Beside her are her beloved roses. Mallory dies looking at the colour of his eyes.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **SORRY OH MY GOD SORRY I'LL FIX IT ******


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **fix it did I say? I mean... whoops... (but I will I promise)**
> 
> **inspiration taken from Sabrina for the tree! I'm watching it for the witchy vibes ;)**
> 
> **again with wildy vacillating tenses..................... ******

Michael is half-asleep in bed when his door creaks open.

His first instinct is _danger_ , and the image of his mother with a knife in hand comes to mind. He unconsciously tenses and holds his breath until he recognises Mallory’s light, hesitant steps. The gentle way she latches the door makes all the tension leave his body.

His angel pulls back the covers gently as if not to wake him and climbs into his bed. Already he feels calmer, his dark instincts smothered by the presence of her light magic. Mallory presses herself close against his back and he catches her hands when they circle around him and presses a kiss to her fingertips.

“Sorry,” she whispers into his shoulder blade, “I didn’t mean to wake you.”

“That’s okay.”

She shifts and after a few lovely, sleepy minutes he feels her lashes brushing the skin on his back, still blinking, wide-awake.

“Are you okay, angel?” Michael murmurs sleepily, accidentally letting his nickname for her slip out and Mallory inhales, pleased.

“I just couldn’t sleep.”

“What’s on your mind?” He rolls over to face her and gathers her close, absently kissing her hairline.

“It hurts too much.” She whispers mournfully, tears slipping across her face. When he looks down all he can see is red. The bed grows wet with blood and Mallory gasps for breath, pale and drawn.

“Mallory!” He cries out and rips away the covers. He tries to find the wound but she screams in pain when he touches her and this is the last thing he remembers before he snaps awake.

X

He has this dream every day for months afterwards. Sometimes it varies and he is tending to a gunshot wound in her neck, or watching her asphyxiate on her own blood after she inhales the warlock’s poisonous powder. Sometimes it’s in the garden, and she talks to him while she dies. Telling him calming, lovely things. She talks about her roses, and her future, how beautiful he looks in the moonlight. And then she bleeds out and perishes. Always. He never saves her.

“Michael, I love you.” She whispered once and the sadness nearly broke him that day. Nearly made him hurt himself in anguish so that he wouldn’t have to hear that from her in a dream. Because he would never hear it from her truly. Would never get to say it back.

He had loved her since he had met her, he’s sure. Ever since he basked in that pure white light for the first time, since she made the darkness in his soul wither away. He’s never needed to tell her because he’s always been sure of how he felt.

How stupid he was, to waste such an opportunity.

X

Michael had eventually navigated the labyrinth, hastened by his own panic to escape. In the centre he found a tree. Gnarled and half-rotted, better suited for firewood than anything but hanging off one crooked limb was a perfect red apple.

He circled the tree warily but eventually with nothing to lose except more time he plucked the apple down and waited for instructions.

“I have to leave.” Michael whispered. He had been unable to break the descensum spell as he would normally. Having tried from the minute his instincts flared it seemed he was being held submerged by a greater force. “Something’s gone wrong. I have to get out of here. Please tell me what to do.”

Still nothing except the deep silence of hell and the low cacophony of voices in his head. When he concentrated he discerned meaning from them. _Eat_ , they whispered.

Michael tore into the apple, chewing at the tasteless flesh and with difficulty swallowed. Finally the voices quietened.

Images came to him in quick flashes, almost too fast for the brain to recognise. But a feeling overcame him and he understood the path his father wanted him to take. He saw a better world, a beautiful world without sin. Reborn from the ashes of this one. Ms. Mead had been right after all, about there being a better tomorrow, and it was his responsibility to lead them to it.

At the end he dropped the apple and looked up at the ever shifting sky. His eyes began to water and he waited.

His father must have lost his humour at the child’s misfortune and he took pity. When Michael next opened his eyes he was back home. Small, dark tendrils released his limbs and he was fully returned to the world of the living.

He was still in the circle surrounded by black dust. Michael scrambled to sit up and that sharp feeling once again pierced his abdomen and the knowledge that something was horribly wrong was so tangible it made him ill.

The house was too dark. In the hallway it was silent and not a single light had been turned on. The atmosphere was thick with the sense that something had _happened_ , yet he felt alone in the grand house. Warily, he crossed the halls to Mallory’s room, knocking gently before opening the door only to find it empty. He spared a brief exasperated, adoring thought to her unmade bed but moved on, unsettled to not find her in there at this late hour.

Michael took the stairs and almost slipped on the quantity of blood lining the wood. He caught himself on the railing and waited for his eyes to adjust and his head to balance out again.

Fire summoned with his hand revealed another hell. As far as he could see spread across the floors from wall to wall were the bodies of Robichaux’s students. A few appeared to have been shot, and more that seemed to have been exsanguinated somehow. Blood dripped paths from their eyes and mouths and they looked up eternally in horror.

None of them were Mallory though, but among the carnage he saw Coco in her pearls and Myrtle’s unique hair and nausea turned his stomach. Michael backed away so fast he caught his heel on the stairs and narrowly avoided smacking his head on the ground.

In Cordelia’s room he found two bodies, one of the Supreme and the other Misty with a bullet between her eyes. 

He choked on his grief and hurried to Cordelia’s side but his breath would not bring her back. Neither did shaking or begging or ugly, undignified tears. Loss carved deep into his heart and after too long he began to right her corpse with trembling hands, tucking hair behind her ear and straightening her necklace.

Misty’s gaze was turned toward the picture window from where she slumped over the edge of the bed and in his grief-stricken mind he went over and looked down at the garden.

There’s a body on the ground down there too and he _knows._ He just knows.

X

The sun is slowly beginning its ascension when he moves down from the house on leaden feet. It turns the dark world grey and it reminds him of ash, of burning.

His angel is lying beside the roses, gaze open and unseeing. Hands torn and cradling her abdomen where a deep gash remains.

“Oh Mallie…” He whispered, mind half gone. “Oh no, no no no no no…”

The boy drops to his knees and pulls her into his arms. Her eyes fall closed and she looks peaceful. The blood that had dripped down her cheeks gives her a macabre imitation of a smile. It’s mostly dried by now and her skin feels too cold.

“Mallory, my love. Open your eyes…” He begs her, pressing his face against her cold one. “Sweetheart, I’m so sorry. It’s going to be okay. We can fix this.” He rocks her corpse back and forth, too numb to fight through the immense pressure collapsing his lungs. “I can fix this.” He realises with a gasp and places her gently back on the ground.

He steadies himself and shakes his head to clear it of the fog that had overcome it since he looked out the window upstairs. Michael wipes away the mess of tears from his face and bends down as if to kiss her gently, to breathe life into her.

And then she’s gone. Vanished in the blink of an eye. Disbelieving, Michael takes handfuls of the red mud and crushed blue rose petals as if to grasp her from the very nether she had vanished to. But there's nothing left of his angel.

His scream cracks the sky in two and an acid rain begins to fall. It’s the beginning of the end.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **thank you all for reading and commenting, your response to the last chapter made me do the evil author laugh :'D**
> 
> **god Michael is dramatic I love him ******
> 
> ****next chapter will be good I promise ;) ********  
> 


	18. Chapter 18

The world decays steadily. Life as unwilling to loosen its grasp as it has ever been, but it is no match for the strength of Michael’s sadness and rage which compel widespread destruction. Natural disasters work for most of it, bringing ruin to overpopulated cities in the form of tsunamis, earthquakes and wildfires that burn for months. The rest the humans take care of themselves with their own destructive technology to attempt to rule over the remnants of society. The sun grows dark within a sky the colour of blood and the moon becomes a great blackened eye in the night.

It also means there’s a lot less people, which is nice.

After what had happened that day Michael couldn’t bring himself to carry on anymore as if things could go back to the way they were. With a breath he did bring back Misty Day so that together they could bury Cordelia like she deserved. But the students were too many, and those that had died not from bullet wounds would vanish as well when given Vitalum Vitalis. Even their most dearly loved ones.

“Don’t bring them back.” He insisted when Misty bent over one of the many corpses on that day so long ago now. “They’re only going to die again anyway.”

“Why do you say that? What do you mean?” She had been newly resurrected and looked about as good as the bodies she toiled over.

“The apocalypse has begun.” Michael took a seat on the stairs feeling empty and drained after the day. His shaking hands were still muddied and he kept looking anxiously back towards the garden in case he was imagining things. Every day he still checks the garden for his angel as if some miracle might bring her back to him.

“But they’re innocent.” Misty had said, stroking the hair back from one of the girl’s faces.

“That doesn’t matter anymore.” How stupid it had been of him to leave the Coven alone, to go to the underworld unprepared and to leave them so vulnerable. A dark, downward spiral of what could have been starts and before he can help it he’s crying again. “None of it matters anymore.”

Together they buried the bodies and afterwards Michael and Misty remain in the house despite the memories and mess. Robichaux is not spared from disaster and they live in the ruins half collapsed from flood and destructive winds. It reminds Michael of Sybil’s hell. And how he had vowed that this world would never come to be. How naïve he had been then. How thoughtless. How young.

In the time after, Misty asked him once what had happened to Mallory and he did not say a word. He disappeared for nine days and came back bloodied and wretched.

X

Michael had planned to bide his time but Misty asking what happened to his angel had been a tipping point and it seemed nothing would satisfy him than to hunt down the ones that started this all. Hiding in plain sight, it did not take him long.

Michael enters Hawthorne academy like a phantom and slays all that stand in his way between him and his Ms. Mead. They don’t suffer like the Robichaux students must have, but he makes it quick and just as bloody.

A man named Pennypacker confesses to him under duress what had killed their students. A kind of bleeding powder. He shows the man how it feels to bleed out of his eyes.

Another tells him of their counterspell for resurrection. But it cannot be reversed. Michael kills him quickly when he realises how hopeless the situation really is.

The Satanists are there too, and mid-congratulations their saviour tears off their heads.

The bloody trail terminates at a room designated for Ms. Mead. She waits on the edge of the bed patiently for him and doesn’t even flinch at what must be a frightening appearance.

“Hello, Michael.” She greets calmly. Blood mats his hair and the look in his eyes is wild. Ms. Mead remains as composed as ever, put together neatly and her room in order like she had anticipated this. The gentle way she says his name sends his heart into nostalgic turmoil. It reminds him of his adolescence. Of being scolded for leaving dishes in his room, being praised for good grades or remembering to say grace at the table. It reminds him of the little things like the _good mornings_ and _goodnights_ and the way she had cared. Or at least pretended to.

“Ms. Mead.”

“You’ve done so well, my boy. You’ve done me proud.”

“What do you mean?”

She sweeps a hand out as if to indicate the world outside this room even though they are deep underground in what must be one of the safest places left on this rotting earth.

“This was all part of the plan. You fulfilled the prophecy, Michael. This is the end times, just as Satan desired.”

“I didn’t want this.” Michael whispers. His knees feel like they might give out so he grips the doorjamb to stay upright. The weight of his grief settles across his shoulders and makes him ache so terribly. He just wishes someone would hold him up for a moment, ease the burden of all this suffering he’s caused. It wasn’t deliberate. Had it not been for that one terrible day…

His angel wouldn’t have wanted any of this either. But the madness of his anger and grief could not be contained in his physical form and manifested in the cataclysmic events that brought them all here now to this moment. And there wasn’t enough humanity left in him to care.

“But here we are.” Ms. Mead speaks his thoughts.

“Why did you do it?” He hates how plaintive he sounds, how childish, to beg for reason.

“Do what?”

Michael chokes on the words. He doesn’t want to spell it out but she pretends ignorance to be cruel.

“You _killed_ her.”

Ms. Mead rises from the bed and approaches the boy. She takes his face between her hands and wipes away the tears like she has in the past when he was young. It makes him feel small and he closes his eyes and relishes it for a moment.

“She distracted you, from your path.”

“I loved her.” He gasped. “More than anything.”

“Sometimes love is not enough. There was a higher purpose”

“Why don’t you care?” Michael tears Ms. Mead’s hands away in anger and steps back.

“I cared for the end result. It had to be you to initiate the apocalypse, Michael. She was just a person, a fleeting second in what will be your long life. You are the son of Satan and your fate is of grander design than one little witch. You needed a push. It was a means to an end. Literally.”

“So it all meant nothing to you. All our years together. I meant nothing to you.”

“No my darling, of course you did. But I’m trying to say the mission was always the most important thing. You lost sight of what truly mattered. It was a hard lesson, but we’re here now. We made it.”

Michael swallows down his sadness and calls upon that dark void in his soul.

“And are you happy now? Was it worth it?”

She tenses when she suddenly understands the direction this is going to go. A ‘ _yes’_ dies on her tongue anyway when he seizes her neck and violently throws her to the ground.

“ _Thank you_ , my Ms Mead.” Her eyes roll back in her head as he further compresses her throat. He doesn’t stop even when something crushes beneath his hands. “For everything.”

X

When he comes back home he doesn’t feel better about any of it. There’s just more dead bodies in a world already full of them.

It still haunts him that he never finds his angel. Every day he performs the descensum spell and searches the realm for her. It doesn’t make sense though that she would end up in hell but he looks anyway. He checks behind every closed door and witnesses hundreds of thousands of tormented souls trapped in endless loops or torture chambers. Michael only leaves when the hells start adapting to him and the visions grow too traumatic, too close to the bone for him to handle.

But on the so-called living side of things it’s not much better. Robichaux crawls with unhappy ghosts of students that for the most part leave him and Misty alone. If there’s an anguished cry in the middle of the night from a spirit they no longer step out of their rooms to see to it anymore.

Michael tries to make the best of his new world but it’s hard to see why it matters in the end, how it’s any better than the last. The earth is sour and though he tries with magic and with toiling, dirty hands he cannot make anything grow in the soil. The few humans who survive become ill, gruesome and twisted with disease. Even Misty is sick with tumours that eat away at her flesh and soon he will be truly alone in the world.

He needs his angel back. This creation is wasted on him. This very life is not worth living anymore.

In one of the last rooms of the house that has not completely fallen in Michael strips himself naked and digs a knife deep into the flesh of his wrist. He pulls down hard, purposefully and keeps dragging through the flesh, splitting apart the veins in his forearm, his elbow and higher still.

With the blood he finishes his pentagram and prays.

“Father, I’ve come to beg one last time.”

The flames of the candles around him shiver though the air is still.

“I’ve done what you asked. I’ve destroyed the world and most everyone in it. It is ready to begin anew.” The blood he kneels in begins to bubble and he hears the thousand whispers in his ear. “But the earth is tainted. Nothing grows here. I need someone who will help me fix this. I’ve lost my purpose, and all this will have been for nothing.”

Michael blinks and his vision grows dark and he knows his father is listening. His voice begins to shake.

“Bring her back to me. My Mallory. Please, father. It’s the only thing I ask.”

The void embraces him and Michael begins to let himself hope again.

“Ave Satanus.”

X

In another world, she is at peace. Above her are soft clouds in a vermillion sky and she is happy, warm, safe and loved. This is all Mallory knows and it is perfect.

Sometimes she comes across people she knows but it is fleeting and trivial. Cordelia comes one day and takes her ethereal hands.

“ _This is my gift to you._ ” The ghost whispers and presses a silver coin into each of her hands.

“What do I need it for?” Mallory had asked but Cordelia had simply smiled and shaken her head. “Thank you…” She murmurs anyway, and then it’s all whisked away and she knows blissful nothingness again.

Time passes indefinitely until a great black hand cracks open the heavenscape. It tears the world apart carelessly and the screams of the others drown out all sound. It strikes at Mallory and catches, rending open her chest and spilling her everywhere. She drips through the crack to the outside world.

Mallory’s soul descends.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **okay so I know I promised this would be good but I am writing about the antichrist and the devil it was bound to rub off on me that I too am full of LIES**
> 
> **next chapter... maybe a reunion... possibly... just had to fight through all this exposition... bear with me guys ily so much xx ******


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **enjoy x ******

A body forms from the dust and mist and leaves a girl lying in the ruins of a once magnificent garden. Around her the dead plants seem to turn towards her, drawn to the presence of light. Beneath the ground in tiny curling tendrils life once again begins to bloom.

Mallory’s awareness comes back slowly as her soul filters through one world to another. Breath is struck into her and she blinks awake and looks up at a pale red sky. Unconsciously she moves a hand down to her middle where her dress is torn and tacky with blood but where no wound cuts her in two anymore.

With a deep, unhappy sigh she realises she is alive again. Human and flawed and ripped away from wherever she had been. Where she had been happy.

The ground is damp around her and there is mud and leaf matter in her hair. Slowly she rises on stiff limbs to stand and look at the remains of a world she once knew.

X

Michael wanders the halls of hell, keeping it for his father as part of the bargain to supposedly bring his angel back to him. He redirects lost souls when he finds them, punishes the demons for transgressions and helps create the hells with his dark magic. Unparalleled in power and cruelty, his imagination knows no bounds.

He’s long been aware of the fact that nothing asked of the devil comes without a price and thus had prepared for trickery. Some time has passed since then though and Michael presumes he must find her himself and so continues searching the world for any sign of her.

The price being he now has a duty here. A whole realm to keep and maintain. He returns to the living world when he can and tends to Misty’s broken, dissolving body.

It’s much like how she must have cared for Cordelia in her last days. Sometimes they talk about it but Michael doesn’t feel much like dwelling on the past, full of pain and misery as it is.

“Delia went peacefully, you know.” Misty whispers once as Michael dresses the open lacerations on her skin, wrapping bandages tenderly around her arms.

“I do. I saw it.”

“What do you mean? How?”

He explained how he was trapped in the descensum spell and can just barely keep the self-loathing out of his voice when he stresses what a mistake it had been, how selfish it was to abandon them. Misty takes his hands and steadies him until he can compose himself again.

“When I came back, I saw what had happened. Just brief visions. But enough to see that Cordelia was gone and… and the rest afterwards.”

“It wasn’t your fault, Michael. You know that right?”

She looks up at him with those big, imploring eyes and his heart swells with gratitude for her. Of course Misty would be the one comforting him even as she lay dying. It’s agony to think of a world without her in it where he will be alone again.

“You’re hurting me.” She says and pulls her wounded arm from his tight grip. He had been holding her too tightly, afraid to let go.

“Sorry.” Michael murmurs, chastised and ashamed of his neediness and starts to put away their scavenged medical supplies.

“Michael it’s not your fault. What happened.”

He can’t hear this right now. Misty might believe it but he knows it not to be true. If he had been there he would have saved them, all of them. It was his presence that brought the warlocks and Satanists to their door. The deaths of the Coven are on him. Pulling her shawl tighter around herself Misty tries to take Michael’s hand but he pulls away and makes to leave.

“Please forgive yourself. It will kill you if you don’t.”

That doesn’t sound so unappealing to him in his current state. From Cordelia’s room where Misty stays now he looks down at the garden and the déjà vu makes him sick. He obsessively looks to the roses but sees nothing there.

“Mallory wouldn’t have wanted this for you.”

And it’s this that breaks him. For they don’t speak of her, and he certainly will not say or hear her name anymore for the loss it brings. He’s only barely surviving by not thinking of his angel at all. He transmutes out of there so fast and so far away it makes him feel ill.

Alone, as he has always been and will always be, wandering the empty streets of a dead city Michael swallows down his suffering and digs deep into that dark void in his soul for the strength to go on. Else he will fall apart and there will be no coming back.

And that cannot happen yet because there is still a world to rebuild. He’s going to fix it no matter what because it’s what his angel would have wanted. He’ll make it beautiful for her and hope that one day whatever great celestial forces took her from him might give her back.

X

When Michael returns from hell he navigates the ruins of Robichaux to check on Misty. She mostly sleeps now as the disease ravages her body but it’s proving harder to let go of his attachment to her. Putting a light hand on her back lets him know she’s still breathing. Absently he wonders how many breaths she has left in her but pushes the thought away and fixes the bedspread.

Downstairs he strips off his cloak and leaves it draped over the ashy banister and goes to the garden to check on his plants that never flourish. Outside it is cold, on the verge of a nuclear winter and frost hangs in the air that will give everything a glassy surface by morning. It’s no wonder nothing grows here given the state of the world.

He kneels to check on his latest saplings when he realises he is not alone.

Across the garden he sees her standing beneath the dead remains of an apple tree, looking up at the twisted limbs that shiver in the cool, silent breeze.

Michael’s body no longer obeys him and he stops breathing, awareness narrowed down to that figure. There’s no doubt in his mind that it is her from the elegant long-sleeved chiffon dress, high boots and that ever present gilded flower crown in her hair. No memory could give justice to the image she presents. That’s his angel there in front of him but his body won’t respond. _Move_ he tells himself. _She’s right there, go to her_.

He does rise from the ground and then Mallory turns to him.

“Your hair…” She says surprised, voice carrying across the distance. The look on her face, that lovely, familiar face finally breaks whatever spell seized his form and he rushes to her. But stops himself just in front of her, afraid to touch her in case she isn’t real. His mind might have finally broken and she may just be another apparition.

“Mallie?”

She reaches out one pale hand and gathers his hair where it grows long now past his shoulders.

“I missed you.” Mallory says with a frown at the realisation. “You’re supposed to be with me. And you weren’t.”

“I’m so sorry.” He’s going to be apologising for the rest of his life but that’s okay because she’s here now in front of him and she must be real because she’s touching him, marvelling at his stupid hair when he could be holding her and so he does.

Michael wraps his arms urgently around her frame and sobs with the relief that she is real and there and he has her with him again.

“Mallie, you’re back.”

He’s holding her so tightly she must be unable to breathe. Mallory slides her hand into his hair and grips tight. The pain is grounding through the shock of it all. Her skin is warm and her magic is real and alive and blossoming. He lets himself be swallowed up in the gravity of her.

_Where did I go?_ She wants to ask but bites her tongue. To her Michael looks different, his face older and sharp with grief but it’s her Michael and whatever hell she’s landed in has him here with her and she’s contented. Even if none of it is real she has him here now in front of her and although her mind is running in desperate circles for what this all means, what happened to make him and the world like this, why she is here, she knows acutely now that she  must be the strong one in this situation. That he is a knife’s edge away from falling apart and so she holds him and they stand together in the dead garden of a dead world and she tells him she loves him, whispers it over and over until it’s the only words he knows and she feels the magic of it beginning to heal.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **well. I've loved torturing you with the angst and don't think it's over yet but enjoy this brief interlude of happiness, next chapter is half finished as well and you're gonna like it ;) ******


	20. Chapter 20

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***sighs for 45 minutes* ******

Michael drains his magic bringing her food and clean water. He takes her into the house and clears the debris from a bathtub, using stiricidium to summon water particles and filtering them of the radiation and other taints that pervade the world. The water runs hot and he helps Mallory out of her muddied dress, reverently lowering the zipper at her back and marvelling at the smoothness of her skin. When he checks her hand and neck he sees that her scars from their old life did not come back with her. Sliding a hand across her stomach in awe makes her jump and Mallory steps away from him.

“I just need ten minutes.” It’s clearly a dismissal but he’s loath to leave her. His whole being thrums with the knowledge that she’s really there in front of him. His heart sings and he feels truly alive for the first time in so long. His pulse beats to the rhythm of _she’s here, she’s here, she’s here._

But his angel is shivering in the low light of the bathroom standing there in her underwear and he still can’t seem to move away from her.

“It’s okay. I’m not going anywhere.” She says.

He runs his fingertips down her arm, following the tracery of veins and examining her hands.

“Michael.”

“I could help you.” He doesn’t mean it to be as suggestive as it sounds, and just when her eyes widen they both look down towards her growling stomach that interrupts them.

“Huh.” She had forgotten she could feel such tedious human things again like hunger. The force of it surprises her, it’s more compelling even than the need to be clean. “Would you…”

“I’ll get you something to eat.” This sudden task inspires a new kind of fierceness in his eyes and he kisses her hand gently and departs, only stopping once to look back and continuing on when she nods at him.

Alone, she wipes the dust from the cracked mirror above the sink and looks herself in the eye. _Is that really me in there?_ She seems as normal as ever except for the absence of scars. Her pupils retract and her skin pebbles with goosebumps and all these marvellous, trivial human things make her ridiculously happy.

The mud is flaking off her though so she finally steps into the bath and washes herself as best she can with the dried chips of soap she scavenges from the sink. Her hair is a disaster but she makes do with what she has and steps out just as she hears Michael’s footsteps down the hall.

There’s no towel so she stands there dripping wet and pulls her hair back from her face when he enters. There’s no point in hiding but she still tries to fight the instinctive will to cover herself. It’s not anything he hasn’t seen before, but this Michael is different, older and worn-down compared to the boy she had once invited into her bed.

The mesmerised look on his face hasn’t changed though when he sees her standing naked in the middle of the room. Clearing his throat, his voice still comes out raspy when he hands Mallory a pile of clothes.

“Here, I found these for you.”

“Thank you.” She takes the clothes and sorts through them, trying to ignore the way he shifts uncomfortably and is torn between staring or being a gentleman and looking away. In the end he escapes with eyes downcast and tells her he will be in the dining room. It makes her smirk and feel a little thrill at the effect she has on him, even as dishevelled as she feels.

There’s a feast laid out for her when she gets there. Michael’s laid a plate and pulls a chair out for her at its place and then busies himself with pouring hot tea for the both of them.

Mallory starts eating ravenously, breaking apart warm, crusty bread and dipping it in buttery sauces, pairing it with salted meats and rich cheeses. While she chews she starts slicing into the fresh fruit but she slows down when she realises he is simply watching her, space on the table in front of him bare.

“Aren’t you hungry?” She asks self-consciously.

“No… I don’t really… eat much anymore.”

“Why?”

Michael looks away and steels himself for the onslaught of questions that will naturally follow this inquisition.

“Where did all this food come from anyway?” She wonders aloud, noting the drastic difference in colour from the food in front of her to the grey, washed out world around them.

“Maybe it would be best if I start from the beginning.” Michael’s clearly anxious about all of this and tries to disguise it with a nonchalant face but it doesn’t fool her.

“Yes, you should.”

But the words that he had prepared earlier falter on his tongue.

“What happened to the world, Michael?” His angel asks, putting her knife and fork down and leaning towards him over the table. Her hair is still wet and pulled back from her face and it leaves all of her emotions bare to him. Those unblinking eyes and that hard set to her normally soft mouth. A part of him is scared that she won’t understand. Another part is terrified that she will.

“Mallory, you died…” He’s never spoken it aloud before and it still hurts. “You died and the world _ended_.”

“What? I couldn’t have done this…” She’s taken aback, horror creeping across her face. “Is this because I became Supreme? What do you mean?”

“No. No, it was my fault. I didn’t mean to imply…” He takes a steadying sip of tea and gathers himself back together. “When you died… I found you… Your body. And I couldn’t handle it, Mallie. The apocalypse started because of me. Because I _lost_ you.”

“Oh…” Unsure of how to respond, she reaches across the table and tries to take Michael’s hand but he pulls it away.

“Let me finish.” He gasps, not even able to look her in the eye anymore. His voice begins trembling. “The world fell apart. Earthquakes and fires and floods. I couldn’t stop it. I didn’t try. And the humans took care of the rest. There was so much destruction as they fought over what was left. But it was a short war. There’s some outposts of survivors left but mostly everyone is gone.”

A few silent moments follow while Mallory processes this and she looks wistfully out the smashed windows lining the side of the room.

“You’re still here.” He’s confused as to what she means until she indicates the house around them.

“I didn’t have anywhere else to go.”

“Is there anyone else except us? Did any of the Coven survive?”

“I brought Misty back, but…”

Michael cuts himself off, thinking that he really should go check on the witch upstairs. He should take some food up for her and tell her what’s happened.

“But?” Mallory prompts.

“She’s dying. Her body can’t handle the radiation. She doesn’t have long.”

Grief strikes across Mallory’s face and she looks towards the stairs where his gaze had fallen.

“And the radiation doesn’t affect you?”

“No.”

“So it’s just us three then.” He nods and waits as she once again picks up her fork.

“Where did this food come from?”

“Uh…” Michael stutters tellingly as the question throws him off. She’s not going to like the answer and she has already figured this out by his hesitation. Mallory narrows her eyes until he answers.

“Hell.”

“ _What_?” She drops her fork with a clatter and looks anxiously between him and the food.

“It’s fine! It’s what I’ve survived on, Misty too.”

“This is so ridiculous.” Mallory says slumping back in her seat defeated, passing a hand over her eyes. “God, what a mess.”

“I’m trying to fix it.” He says despairingly and her eyes soften again. This time he lets her take his hands and she turns them over, studying his rings curiously.

“Is all of this even real?”

“I hope so.”

“How am I back then?” She looks up at him and this is yet another thing he’s dreading to tell her.

“I made a deal.”

“With who? Or what?” Mallory’s eyes widen in fear and the grip on his hand tightens.

“My father. I asked him to bring you back… to help me to save the world.”

It takes her a moment before she can reply.

“This is beyond saving.”

“That’s not true! This was his plan all along, to destroy the world and create something new and beautiful from the ashes. I’ve been trying to fix it but I can’t do it alone.”

“So you only brought me back because of those Satanists and all the _bullshit_ they told you?” She pulls away from him, scattering the fruit from her plate in her haste to stand and back away from the table. “I thought you were better than that. I thought this whole idea didn’t matter to you. And it hasn’t worked has it? The world is even worse now. And this was more important to you than the Coven, our family?" She quietens. "More important than me?"

“I brought you back because I couldn’t go on without you anymore.” He hurries to explain desperately, voice breaking in his sadness. “I didn’t want to live in this world without you. I didn’t want to try.”

She still doesn’t look convinced. Angry and disappointed that the very same Satanists who killed her and their Coven still got what they wanted in the end. Armageddon, and a dead, forgotten world.

“Mallory I searched everywhere for you, but you were just gone. I couldn't save the others. All I had left was the mess I created and I couldn’t do it anymore. I couldn’t live another day. I couldn’t take another _step_.”

“But why now? After all this time?”

Michael finally falls silent, out of words. He still doesn’t stand from his seat at the table and they both know she holds the power over this conversation. His eyes mist and he clenches his jaw.

“What was the price to bring me back?” Mallory thinks she understands now how much this gift must have cost him. When he still doesn’t reply she takes a few steps closer but he keeps blinking and looking away, his expression desolate. “Michael?” She asks gently, she doesn’t want to hear this answer but she needs to.

“My freedom. I serve my father now completely. I must return to the underworld and keep it.”

“For how long?” She circles around to his side of the table and touches his cheek softly so that he might have the courage to look at her.

“Forever, I suppose.”

“But you can stay here with me, for a little while longer?”

“Yes.”

“Please don’t leave me alone in this world.” She pleads and Michael pulls her down so that she sits in his lap and he can bury his face in the crook of her neck.

“I won’t.”

X

He takes her up to see Misty and it’s the sight of her friend that finally breaks her. Mallory lets the tears from this incredibly stressful day fall.

“It’s so nice to see you.” Misty rasps. The older witch strokes hers hair when Mallory cries into her shoulder. “I thought you were gone…”

“I was for a while.” She says, hiccuping. “I’m back now. We’ll take care of you, Misty. I promise.”

Misty pushes the young witch’s hair to the side and presses a kiss to her cheek. Mallory lays down beside her and they talk quietly until the ill witch succumbs to fatigue again. Mallory rises to join Michael where he waits on the settee out in the hall. She's suddenly so incredibly drained, emotionally and physically. The defeated expression on her face has Michael pulling her close and walking her down the hall.

They climb onto his bed together and he holds her tightly. The room isn’t comforting like it used to be with the window’s blown open and the absence of trees swaying in the yard. There’s a distinctly empty, unsafe feeling to the world around them.

Despite her exhaustion she can’t sleep, processing her strange day and trying to avoid the overwhelming grief for her family and friends that is soon to break through the shock of being alive. Mallory twists Michael's long hair around her fingers and traces his Adonis-like features lovingly. He’s far too beautiful, and it surprises her every time she thinks of his title. _The_ _Antichrist._ It’s harder to ignore though when she thinks of the damage around them, proof of his power, his destiny.

“What are we going to do?”

His eyes are half-lidded and he strokes her back absently.

“We’ll figure it out.” He murmurs. “You’re here now. That’s all that matters.”

She still can’t relax until she pushes away his handsome velvet overcoat and pulls his shirt up to slide a hand across his skin. There she feels the crests of his ribcage which expands with each breath and further up the slow, sure beat of his heart. She taps her fingers lightly and marvels at the consistency of it when everything around them and between them has changed.

Michael smiles and traps her hand with his own, kissing her forehead.

“Go to sleep, angel.”

She smiles into his chest and does eventually yield to the exhaustion but all the comfort in the world can’t shake the bone-deep feeling that it’s wrong for her to be here. That this world isn’t for them anymore. He may plan to fix it but she knows it is beyond repair.

Instead she ponders how to leave it.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **oh damn Mallie can't u just be freakin happy**
> 
> **I mean all your friends and plants are dead and the world is an actual nightmare courtesy of your bf but damn**
> 
> **ily my darling readers you're the best, be patient with our dumb babies while they figure stuff out xx ******


	21. Chapter 21

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **merry crisis to all those celebrating! enjoy this special gift from me to you ;) ******
> 
> **  
> **  
> **(god I hope this makes sense)**  
> 

The sun still cycles through day and night but it’s hard to see anymore through the thick, polluted fog that permeates the atmosphere. When morning comes it is still dark inside the house and Mallory has already blinked awake, disoriented from a sleep that was not restful.

Beside her Michael is still deeply asleep and she again marvels at the passage of time that has passed between the young warlock student she loved and this wounded man before her. At a guess it’s been only more than a year, enough for his hair to grow out and for the world to come to a crashing halt. But it feels like a lifetime.

Mallory still loves him fiercely though. Of course not even death would change that. And thinking back on it all she doesn’t regret it. She knew when she resolved that she would die for him, knowing the frightening white-faced demon heralded her coming death and the way she was drawn down to the garden to meet her fate… No, she doesn’t regret any of it.

She’s still not happy with the way things happened after her death though, not that Mallory could control any of it. But it saddened her that Michael’s resolution was not stronger than his natural born impulses to destroy.

Her soul still resonates when she’s with him, two broken halves coming together and mending, but she’s not sure if it’s enough. It scares her that he might not be enough. Mallory’s compulsion to be with him might not outweigh her wanting to stay in this empty, dying world she’s already starting to hate.

It’s this fear that propels her to impulsively kiss him awake, to distract herself from the spiralling thoughts. Michael responds slowly, out of practice.

“Mallory…” He greets her sleepily between kisses, shifting onto his back to pull her closer. Mallory surges forward and sucks his bottom lip into her mouth and he moans and oh god she has _missed_ this.

The need to be closer seizes both of them and his hands curl around her sides, pulling the material of the simple slip dress taut around her. She deepens the kiss and throws a leg over him to straddle him as his thumbs trace tentatively over her hips.

“It’s… um, it’s early.” He stutters adorably, half-asleep but rapidly waking up. Mallory sucks a kiss onto his neck and presses even closer to him, reducing the distance down to the fabric between them. It reminds her to finish unbuttoning his shirt, wondering why she didn’t do it last night when she craved that skin contact. It distracts him and he watches her nimble fingers pick apart the buttons, following the revealed skin with kisses.

“Does that matter?” She asks between pecks to his chest.

“No.” Michael breathes and he pulls his arms from the shirt and tosses it aside. Then running reverent hands up her sides he lifts the hem of her dress and pulls it above her head. He surprises her by flipping them over so her back hits the bed and the air leaves her lungs.

“Oh!” She huffs and the annoyance at having the control taken from her dissolves as quickly as it came when she sees the intense look in his eyes. Fully awake now he kisses her urgently, hands pressing hard against her body but flickering around as if he can’t decide where to land them. Mallory catches one and places it on her bare breast, letting his palm warm up her nipple that had hardened in the cold air.

“Hey.” She whispers between his increasingly frantic kisses. “Slow down. It’s okay.”

He breaks away and tucks his face into the side of her neck, breathing deeply and she falters at the new feeling of his hair around her. She strokes it gently and smiles, marvelling at its smoothness, like silk.

“I’m not going anywhere.” She reassures him.

“I know.” Michael finally murmurs to her skin, so quiet she strains to hear him. “But I missed you. I missed this.”

“I did too.”

After he calms down he thankfully starts moving again, sweeping his thumb over her nipple in practised movements. She’s not sure if it’s the distance and time, the unknown and strange world around them or the way they are both somewhat new again to this feeling, but it’s more intense than ever.

“We have all the time in the world now.” He whispers with a grin before he catches a nipple in his mouth. She tastes like the natural salt of her skin and clean bath water. He thinks about what other parts of her taste like and the idea sets in his mind like stone. Mallory whimpers when his teeth scrape the sensitive flesh just a little too hard and he delights in the strained look on her face.

Sparks shoot under her skin from his touch and leave her nerves frayed. Mallory’s thankful for the distraction, validated by the fact that she cannot think of anything right now outside of Michael and the way he makes her feel. The horrible world outside falls away and it’s just the two of them and the space in between. This is perhaps the only part of this new life that makes sense to her, like picking up where they left off.

Michael dedicates time to her breasts as always, enthralled with the way she responds so vividly to the easy touches. He decides then and there that he _loves_ teasing her. Loves seeing the way she squirms and tries to trap him between her knees. The way she screws up her nose in annoyance when he pulls away and laughs at the desperate keen in her voice. The part of him that was born evil loves the control it gives him over another human. The other part of him, the human part which he hopes is dominant, loves that it is Mallory who chooses to give that control to him. That she wants to be vulnerable with him because she loves him, and in return he can do the same for her. He will never want anyone else as much as he wants her and affection and gratitude swells in his chest.

“I want to do something for you.”

His angel is strung out on the bed, shifting restlessly and panting hard and he’s not gone lower than her chest yet.

“Okay.” She says without hesitation. “Yes.”

Without delay Michael slips his hand under the waistband of her panties and strokes that lovely, soft, wet flesh. She yelps in surprise, arching her back in pleasure and he groans as his cock hardens even further at the sight of her.

“You’re so wet.” He says dumbly, void of sense now that he feels how much she wants him.  Mallory simply nods, overcome with pleasure and he feels a swell of pride at knowing he’s _good_ at this. He’s good at making his angel feel good. It’s somewhat intuitive, but also born of practice and her own careful suggestions and guidance. Like now he knows to slide up and circle her clit so that her breath catches and her legs shake and he does so, feeling smug when her voice fails her.

“Michael… please…”

Quickly he peels her panties down her legs and tosses them off the side of the bed. He does it then before he loses his courage, sliding down to rest on his belly and bring his face close to where his fingers part that sweet little fold of her. The smell of her is potent and he forces his hips down to the bed where he can find some relief in the pressure. He places a very gentle kiss to her clit and laughs when her hips buck and she swears, eyes flying open and looking down at him.

“What are you _doing_?” The scandalised look on her face just makes him laugh harder.

“Let me try this?” He says to the soft skin of her inner thigh and after a few tense moments she nods. He waits until she relaxes a bit, rubbing down the outside of her thighs until the strained muscles begin to soften.  With his eyes on her Michael dips down again and draws his tongue up her centre, gathering her slick and she makes a noise like he’s hurt her.

Before he can raise his head to check she seizes his hair roughly and holds him there. He doesn’t second guess himself given the strength of her grip and resumes, pressing his tongue to her and stroking, tasting her.

“You need a haircut.” She mutters breathlessly, trying to keep his mass of golden hair of the way of her wetness which steadily increases until she’s sure she must be staining the bed beneath her. He huffs against her and continues his attentions, threading his tongue into her like he’s chasing the source of her wetness and she’s gasping because she’s never felt _anything_ like this before.

Just when she’s really starting to relax into it, at that good point in her pleasure where she thinks she could endure this for _hours_ , he comes up and wraps his lips around her clit, sucking hard and she bites back a scream.

“Oh, fuck!” She whines and he loves it when he can make her swear. That deep pressure in her that usually takes longer to build is suddenly precariously close to snapping and Mallory bites her lip hard. Michael must feel it in the way she tries to violently rock her hips from where he holds her down. She tries to apologize but her breath leaves her entirely because he sucks at her again and doesn't relent until she comes. Michael gentles her through it, flicking his tongue against her in rhythm with the way her whole body pulses until it’s too much and she pulls him away, trying to bring him up to her but he doesn’t move from between her legs.

“Michael.” That beautiful hoarseness to her voice as she pants his name makes him feel impossibly more aroused but he’s focuses on the way she’s dripping in front of him. He catches her come on his fingertips and then pushes into her with one finger, then two when she whimpers.

“Oh no… It’s too much…” Mallory moans, oversensitive and shaking and he slows down but she doesn’t stop him. He kneels up between her legs and watches as his angel writhes beneath him, trying to fuck herself on his fingers. He curls them like she taught him, thumb slipping against her clit and she jolts and comes again, orgasm chasing on the heels of her last one and pulsing more wetness against his hand.

This time her whimper is slightly pained when he brushes her oversensitive flesh and she takes his hand and removes it from between her legs. Breathing hard and hair a mess around her from thrashing against the pillows she still looks heavenly. Michael watches her close her eyes and press her hand to her chest, trying to breathe.

Thoughtlessly he puts his wet fingers in his mouth and sucks and the look in her eyes when they flutter open again makes him falter. Mallory reaches to catch his belt loop and tugs half-heartedly, still floating in the aftershocks but her voice is commanding.

“Take these off.”

Michael obeys quickly, eager to free himself from the strained confines of his pants. Mallory pushes herself up on shaking arms and guides him down to the bed so she can crawl on top of him.

“Like this?” He asks, heart pounding furiously as she straddles him. She looks angelic in the low light with her messy hair and bitten lips.

“Yes...” Mallory rubs herself against him and he sees stars. “If you want to.”

“ _Please._ ” He’s certain he’s never wanted anything more in his life.

With a hand each they guide the head of his cock to her entrance and he presses into that wet heat, slick from her own come and so, so warm.

When he’s inside of her he needs a minute to ground himself and he grips her hips so tightly to keep her still that she will bruise.

“That hurts.” She tells him, it’s not a reprimand, just a fact, but his hands fly off her anyway and hover awkwardly between them. Mallory reaches forward and wraps her fingers tightly around his wrists, leaning forward to press them down to the bed. The change in angle lets him slip a few inches deeper and he can’t hold back his groan. His fingertips tingle with the blood loss but he doesn’t care, can’t care when all he can think about is the way she clenches tightly around him, starting to roll her hips tentatively.

“Oh!” She says in awe as he bumps something deep inside her.

“Good?” Is all he’s capable of forming in response, as always compelled to check in with her as he learns all of her reactions.

“Yes.” She emphasises with a swirl of her hips that has his eyes rolling back in his head.

There’s nothing in his life to compare to this moment and he’s utterly lost in her. The way she starts rocking her hips impatiently and the way she pulses around him – it’s like they were made for this. He wants to voice all this, tell her of this incredible revelation but the words escape his tongue as soon as they arrive and all he manages to say is her name. _Mallory, Mallory, Mallory._

His angel smiles down at him, unsure at first in her slow movements but entirely capable and quickly becoming confident in her control. She slides her hands up from his wrists to thread their fingers together and Michael’s startled by the sweetness of it, wanting to kiss her but unwilling to break her rhythm. He’s starting to sweat despite the morning chill and he watches mesmerised by the sight of him disappearing into her with her thrusts. He won’t last long and he’s embarrassed to tell her. Breaking her grasp to grapple for her hips to maybe slow her down, let him savour this but the pace she sets is her own. Already he can feel that hot coil in his spine tightening dangerously.

“Mallie, I’m…” He gets so far but then she squeezes him and he’s coming, curling into himself. Michael spills into her with a choked off groan and she coaxes him through it with shallow little thrusts.

After a long, blissful minute there’s still black spots in his vision and he’s dimly aware of her lining kisses down his jaw. His breathing is ragged and he’s still probably holding her too tightly but he feels warm and relaxed and very much alive. Something he hasn’t felt in such a long time he has to squeeze his eyes tightly to keep the burning emotion hidden.

Thankfully she doesn’t notice. When she pulls back he’s gotten control of himself again but he still must look absolutely wrecked. He can’t help but think that it’s unfair that she can come so many times and still look amazing. In fact she looks positively energised, smiling down at him so openly he can’t help but smile back.

“That was nice.” She purrs a little shyly.

Michael nods. _Nice_ doesn’t even begin to cover it, but he’s still mostly beyond speech and very content to just stay wrapped up in her for a bit longer. He reaches for Mallory to kiss her deeply, slipping his tongue into her mouth until they’re breathless again.

Satisfied in the afterglow they spend much of the morning talking.

“How long can you stay?” Mallory asks a little sadly, naked and unashamed as she plays with his hair, propped up on an elbow facing him.

“I can spend as much time here as I like as long as I spend an equal amount in hell.”

“What does that _mean_ though?”

He sighs and gestures limply.

“If I spend an hour here, I must spend an hour there. Six, twelve hours, a month. Longer perhaps, I’m not sure. Doesn’t really matter as long as it’s equal.”

“What happens otherwise? If you stay too long…?” She has an adorable little frown creasing her brow and he’s compelled to kiss it so he does so.

“It’ll hurt.”

“That’s how you’ll know?”

“Yeah.”

It troubles her but he works on kissing that frown away until she laughs at his antics. They settle and he picks his moment to tell her.

“I love you.” He says finally. Regretting not having said it sooner but so grateful to have another chance to do so. Mallory blushes and smiles wide, hiding her face in his hair and when she whispers it back in that moment he’s never felt happier.

X

But it’s too much to hope that his angel feels this same way forever. For her smile falters after they get up to check on Misty and resume their daily task of trying to repair the world.

Michael catches her sometimes looking dismayed at a missing space from a portrait on a wall, the shattered remains of the piano or the dark stains of blood never erased from the wooden floors. Mallory starts to cry more often and it splits his heart in two when she tries to hide it from him, distracting both him and herself by pulling him down and kissing him or taking him to bed. Her clear unhappiness here is one of those things Michael has to push to the back of his mind where the rest of his guilt and sorrow live.

Otherwise the worry he has for his angel might swallow him whole.

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **I just couldn't help myself there at the end LOL gotta keep things #real ******


	22. Chapter 22

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **special shoutout to shieroello29 for helping me out with plot points! ******
> 
> **love from me x**
> 
> ****(also if you can't tell by now I know abolutely NOTHING about gardening. let's assume Mallory's garden is magic and totally disregards all seasons lol) ********

Mallory spends a lot of time in the garden. It’s nothing new of course, but it doesn’t bring her joy anymore.

The plants refuse to flourish. They grow to hopeful little seedlings with open leaves like praying hands and then they falter. She blames the soil, the tainted water, the lack of clean air and sunlight. But even magical substitutes cannot bring the world to accept the life she puts into it.

Hands outstretched over the dirt she tries her reversing magic and it goes as far as to bring little green shoots up across the yard before something seems to stop her. Or it proves that even she is not strong enough to fight the decay that pervades the world. It goes no further than this before they wither and die and it brings Mallory to tears.

In fact, she spends a lot of time crying nowadays. At first she hid it from Michael, ashamed of her seemingly out of proportion reaction to coming back to life. But he’s started to catch on to her turn of mood and compensates by being too thoughtful, too lovely, too compliant. Bringing her beautiful things from his underworld like new plants and extravagant dresses, exotic foods and keepsakes. He goes out of his way to restore Robichaux so that the horrific, constant reminders of their past are somewhat reduced. Yet somehow, he still doesn’t _see_ her.

Michael remains passionate about his plan to fix the world, working on the major waterways while Mallory works on the soil and air. He brings demons up from hell who wear gruesome plague masks to assist him with the messy work like beginning to burn the masses of bodies. And he still believes he has done the right thing. Michael’s faith in his father is a comfort to him, having had only that to lean on in the year since the apocalypse, it has become near unshakeable. So Mallory tries to support him but each day but it gets harder and harder to pretend that she has the same conviction in his plan.

She often gets lost in the memories of happier times. After collapsing in the garden for the third time in a day, exhausted from draining her magic she rips the plant from the ground in frustration. The little daisy she had been working on – for she had tried everything, roots, vegetables, trees, flowers and herbs but nothing was more fruitful than any another – had just withered back into itself, brown curling leaves dropping to the ground. She squeezes the dead bud in her hand and her chest aches with the unfairness of it all.

From the selection of flowers Michael brings her, Mallory had picked the daisy because it had reminded her of her birthday a few years ago. The girls had pitched in to buy her a bicycle, a lovely ivory colour with a black wicker basket.

“It’s so you can bring all your stupid plants home from the market.” Madison had said affectionately, proudly pulling on the little bow affixed to the handle. “And stop putting dirt through the cars.”

Mallory had been besotted by the gift and had hugged each of the witches in turn so tightly they complained. That day she had made the long ride to the flower stalls and had bought a bucket of daisies to plant to remember the day. For her the garden was something of an autobiography, each plant she could remember putting there for a reason. Like the aloe vera after Coco’s brutal sunburn she came home with after the summer holidays. Blushing pink peonies for Cordelia when she offhandedly mentioned they were her favourites during a winter solstice. Strawberries for Zoe’s preserves, or for cutting up and putting in bowls of vanilla custard for movie nights, curled together with all her girls.

Then blue roses flash into Mallory’s mind’s eye and the sharp pain that now accompanies that memory hits her abdomen. Her hand flies to her side in panic but it is nothing more than her body remembering the trauma. The whiplash from the happy memories to the severe reminder of where she is now and what she has lost has her once again sobbing openly into the cold morning.

Mallory misses them all so much, so physically it threatens to tear apart her very being. The force of it scares her and it makes her cry harder until Michael comes down from the house and gathers her up, carrying her in and holding her as close as possible until those mournful tears come to a slow halt.

Then as is quickly becoming a habit, Mallory kisses him hard and climbs on top of him. Stripping away their clothes with haste and sinking down onto him, needing this distraction again to quell the pain in her heart. Michael knows it’s wrong, unhealthy even. Something she’s been wanting more often lately so that she doesn’t have to feel so badly about everything. But he also can’t say no to her. Selfishly, he doesn’t want to. He can admit to himself that he needs this contact as much as she does, just for the sheer sake of being close to someone after having been alone for so long.

And it feels so, so good.

She wrings pleasure from him and collapses after he comes. Sense returning as he holds Mallory’s trembling form, he wishes for some wisdom as to what to do. Michael just hopes she doesn’t start crying again otherwise the guilt might utterly consume him.

He hates this helpless feeling, hates that it chases him in their relationship and that this won’t be as easily fixed as apologising for a dead animal tribute nailed to her door. He’s destroyed the whole world and he’s the reason her whole family is dead. They can’t exactly just move on from that no matter what he says or does in penance.

And then of course it gets worse when days later he starts to feel that pull to return to the underworld. It starts like a sharp hook under his ribs and it creates its own kind of gravity until each step he takes feels slower and heavier. Michael tries to explain to Mallory that he’s run out of time and the stricken look on her face makes him feel awful. He’d promised after all to not leave her alone in this world.

“You can come with me.” He pleads, head resting in her lap from where he kneels on the floor as she stares forlornly out their bedroom window.

“To hell?”

“Yes.” A few beats pass before he looks up and sees Mallory shaking her head.

“I don’t want to.”

 _It’s nicer than here_ , he wants to argue. But it’s also not. Depending on where Michael goes and the horrors he sees. Sometimes coming back to the world of the living is a peaceful sojourn, the better alternative. But she wouldn’t believe him so he bites his tongue and puts his head back down, studying the pale fabric of her gown because it’s easier than looking at her right now.

“I hate seeing you like this.”

Mallory doesn’t respond, just strokes his hair and looks down at him sadly.

“I’ll be alright.” She says. “You should go.”

“I promised you I wouldn’t leave you alone.”

“I have Misty. I don’t want you to be in pain because of me.” He smiles sadly at this, how ironic it is that instead she must suffer because of him.

It takes another day to convince himself and for her to reassure him that she will be okay. The pain gets worse in the meantime. It holds him back from simple things and becomes so unbearable that he knows he must go. Mallory’s eyes still mist over as he dresses for the day he leaves and he comes back to bed to hold her naked form close.

“I love you.” She tells him. “You should go.”

If Michael hesitates again he might not leave at all so he kisses her chastely and disappears quickly in the hope that it might hurt less.

X

Despite how she had begged Michael not to leave her alone, she’s actually relieved when he goes. If only because now she can let her masks fall and wonder morosely around the house without the pressure of trying to make him feel less guilty. It makes her anxious though to think of what he does down there, how the responsibility of it all must weigh down his already burdened soul. He no longer needs the descensum spell to descend, simply disappearing into the ether, and so there is not even a warm body to curl up beside while she waits for him.

But Mallory does have Misty to worry about, who she tends to now and is frightened that she might be alone with her when she dies. She looks awful, pale-skinned and flesh scored with bubbling lacerations. Bloodshot eyes and thinned away hair, she’s a ghost of the beautiful woman she used to be. But beneath the façade it’s still their lovely Misty. Or so she thought.

“You’re unhappy here.” Misty states between small sips of water from the glass brought to her. The younger witch doesn’t try to deny it, just nods solemnly.

“Mallory, there’s something I must tell you.” Misty sets aside the glass and takes Mallory’s hands. “I’ve tried to tell Michael but he has a way to him. He’s very set on his plan to change the world. Very stubborn.” Her tone is fond and Mallory smirks.

“Trust me, I know. It’s hopeless, this new world he wants to create.” It feels good to confide this to her as she and Michael had given up arguing about it.

“Yes. I don’t have the gift of premonition anymore…” Mallory frowns, not remembering when Misty ever did. “But I _know_ this isn’t going to work. There is no future here. Nothing will ever grow in the soil no matter how hard you try. Then the radiation will kill you too and Michael will be alone and there will be nothing but ash here.”

When Mallory looks up again Misty’s eyes are glazed and foggy. She gets the distinct feeling she is not talking to Misty anymore.

“Miss Cordelia?” She ventures softly.

“I don’t have much time.” The possessed body whispers.

“But are you okay? You were with me, where I was. Are you still safe?” Mallory’s eyes fill with tears and she clutches Misty’s hands, trying to look closer to see the impossibility of Cordelia inhabiting her body.

“Listen. There’s a spell, Mallory. A time-reversing spell, similar to your own powers but on a grander scale.”

“What are you talking about? You want me to reverse time?” The young witch says incredulously.

“To take yourself back in time. It’s the only way. You could change _everything_.”

“Isn’t there just some… some other healing spell we could try?” Mallory grapples with this knowledge, still spun by the realisation she is talking to their dead matriarch. “Cordelia… it’s not even possible! I’ve never heard of a spell like that.”

“It is, Mallory! Trust yourself. There are things you can do that not even we had heard of before you came to us. And you are the Supreme, and perhaps the only witch alive left on the earth. You can take us back to when things were _right_. Together we can stop this before it begins.”

Mallory sputters, unreasonably frustrated by this idea.

“I could barely remember to bring a pen to class and you want me to have this much responsibility? To turn back the apocalypse?”

“Do you see any other options here?” Misty, or Cordelia’s voice she supposes, grows uncharacteristically short. “The spell is called _tempus infinitum_ , and it may be our only shot of fixing this.”

“Where do I even begin to…”

“I’m out of time,” the body gasps.

“No, Cordelia please! Tell me where you are, we can save you!”

“Mallory, be strong. Be _free_ …”

“No, no, no, wait!” She cries out but it’s too late. The light goes out of Misty’s eyes and the body collapses back onto the bed. Mallory catches her a moment too late. After a long minute as she tries to understand everything the spirit had told her she realises with a shock that Misty’s skin is far too cold.

“Oh no.” Mallory whispers. “Oh Misty, no...”

The body has been dead for hours. The eyes look heavenward and do not blink and Mallory admonishes herself, how she could have been so stupid to not notice?

“Not you too.” She’s so tired of crying. How much more grief can fit into her weary heart? She wonders if Misty was alone in here, in pain.

Mallory shakes her head violently to dismiss the agonising thoughts and lays Misty back onto the bed, fixing the pillow and taking her beloved shawl to drape over her face as a shroud.

 _Tempus infinitum_ , Cordelia had said and the words latch into her mind and refuse to let go. The possibility that this is not all there is to the world, that Mallory might be able to save Misty and all of their other lost friends… It seems too good to be true.

And it gives her hope for the first time in so long.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **ily guys so much, you're the brightest part of my day. thank you for reading as always xx ******


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **A short one, beginning inspired by a certain instagram post ;)**
> 
> **Thanks for all who are reading, I've been struggling a bit with the new year but I'm still going! ******

The first time Mallory does it, it makes his head spin in the best way.

The way she presses accidentally on the base of his throat when she comes for the third time that night and just needs something to hold onto while she shivers and keens. The decrease of oxygen made something in Michael’s chest tighten deliciously and he followed soon after. Recovered, she had tripped over herself to apologise as he gasped for breath until she saw the way his pupils had blown wide.

“Oh.” She said, understanding dawning on her face. “Did you… did you like that?”

Beyond words as he often was after orgasm he just nodded dumbly and moaned when she put her hand back on his neck hesitantly and squeezed a little. It’s through this moment that Michael discovered that he _likes_ to give up control. To Mallory, because he trusts her and in this safe space he can forget about all of the responsibility on his shoulders on earth and in hell. Some days it’s like he has not even a minute to breathe. And then he comes home and Mallory can remind him there’s more to him than just his destiny.

But it does have its downfalls because when he’s in this state he will agree to almost anything. So when Mallory once again has him literally by the throat one evening in the library she whispers into his ear.

“Come back with me.”

“No.” Michael says a little strangled. She tightens her hold, thumb digging below his Adam’s apple. She rocks her hips just a little more and he whimpers.

“Yes. Come on, love.” Mallory bites his neck and sucks while she tightens around him and this is just _unfair_.

“Mallie, no…”

“Give in.” Michael loves it when she gets bossy, but he’s not willing to concede this defeat. Although visibly disappointed when he shakes his head again, she takes pity and lets him come when he starts to beg breathlessly. Mallory runs a loving hand through his golden hair and brushes it away from his face where it sticks to the sweat at his temples.

“That was sneaky.” He chides her once his head stops spinning. “Nice try.”

The high of the pleasure is starting to fade and with it that beautiful, lively glow in her eyes. Defeated Mallory stands from his lap. He’s mesmerised by the sight of his come dripping down her inner thigh until he realises she is moving further away and without a word she leaves the room, walking naked through the house.

Panicked by the loss, he stands to follow her of course. Michael finds her in their bedroom shifting through the many dresses in the restored wardrobe.

“Your nightgown is on the bed.” He braves, trying to be helpful to avoid her wrath.

Crankily she storms over and slides the white silk over her head. Taking the brush from the vanity she pulls it roughly through her hair.

“Mallory, we’ve talked about this.”

“I have. You haven’t. You won’t even consider it.” She says sullenly.

“We’re doing good here.” He pleads and once again falls to his knees by her side in supplication. Michael doesn’t care that he’s naked and his knees are digging painfully into the floor. “The main rivers are completely clean. And we’ve almost finished destroying the excess corpses.”

“Excess.” She mutters disbelievingly. 

“We don’t need to go.”

“We do!” Mallory brings the hairbrush down on the vanity so hard that the handle snaps apart with a vicious sound. Michael flinches back in shock at the outburst. “I can’t stand it here! Cordelia has given us another option and I’m going to take it. You can come with me… Or you can stay here in this nightmare. You won’t stop me.”

“I thought it was getting better.” Michael says. “I thought we were doing this together! This was going to be our world, Mallie. Our new Eden.”

“I never wanted this.” All at once the anger seems to leave Mallory and she tosses the broken handle onto the surface of the vanity and turns away. Michael stands and watches her crawl into bed. He’s reluctant to join her, unsure if he is welcome given her mood. But his angel stares for a moment before sighing and flipping the covers back in invitation.

They lie together side by side like the first time they shared a bed, unwilling to cross the invisible boundary that separates them.

“I don’t want you to be unhappy anymore.” Michael admits into the silence.

“Then come with me. We can go back to before all of this happened. We can be with the others again.”

“How do you know it will even work?”

“I don’t.” Mallory shakes her head, hurting from the distance between them but unwilling to be the first one to reach over.  She keeps her voice low and beseeching, both to calm and persuade him. “But I trust Cordelia, and I’m willing to try. I thought we could go to Hawthorne to see their spellbook collection. There's nothing left here that wasn't ruined, but there might be something there that could help us.”

“Hawthorne?”

“You said it was still intact, didn’t you?”

Michael rubs his eyes miserably and nods. He feels strangled in a different kind of way. Arguments build in his chest that feel like a fistful of tacks.

“It’s not right.”

“None of this is.”

“Why can’t you just be happy here?” He says redundantly. “Can’t you try?”

“I am trying. I have been. I’m not meant for this world, Michael.”

“You’re meant to be with _me._ ” He turns to her and pins her with one of his intense gazes.

“Not here. I died… and I was at peace. You brought me back for yourself.” As soon as the words leave her mouth she realises how hurtful they sound. Although she was just speaking plainly the pain cuts across Michael’s face and he casts his eyes down.

“I’m sorry.”

“I didn’t mean it like that.” Mallory says quietly, reaching a hand up to his chin just as he turns away and rolls to his other side.

“I’ll take you to Hawthorne, if that’s what you really want.” He says into his pillow. Mallory touches his golden hair softly but can’t bring herself to come closer. After too long she asks,

“But will you come back with me?”

He doesn’t answer.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **oh noooooo ******


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **my biggest thanks to shieroello29 for becoming my beta for this chapter and also reminding me of the love you readers and I have for this fic. I really needed a reminder, so thank you xx**
> 
> **also another song suggestion which helped me write this chapter if any are interested  
>  (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LvetJ9U_tVY)  
> Possibly the saddest, most relevant lyrics at this point in time lol ******

As Mallory runs the bath with warm water she takes a solitary coin from the pocket of her dress, long forgotten about since that moment in the afterlife, and even before then from that horrific vision in hell. The warlock textbooks shed no light on their use but to Mallory she knew they were imperative somehow.

The coins had appeared again the morning before she left for Hawthorne and there was something to the parallels of them. On one side, a head with two faces so that each looked outwards and towards the other when side by side. In the solitude of the grand house where Michael had left her for the day, Mallory had suddenly felt a weight in her hand and looked down to find the two small discs Cordelia had sent to her. Intuition had told her to leave the other coin with Michael and so she had, but that foresight had abandoned her since. Usually with some sort of event Mallory could summon up a gut feeling of whether it would go fairly or badly and be surprised if she was wrong. But the coins gave her mind a dreadful, necessary emptiness. She pressed her fingertips to the rough edges but kept hold of her coin, afraid to put it down in case it might vanish as quickly as it appeared. She finished removing her boots and other accessories.

The journey had been long, and for the most part silent as Mallory saw more of the dead world than she ever needed to. The garden sculpture was singular in design and therefore easy to find, long ago described to her by Michael from their days at the academy when they shared war stories of classes and teachers. Such trivial things now they seemed, but how she _longed_ for the normality of it. There had been no one inside the building when she arrived and she was grateful not to be surrounded by any more corpses. Though she had to dispatch her horse, letting the exhausted, rotting beast free and to the mercy of the demons that crawled the land. Creatures she had taken great care to avoid in her journey, afraid that they would not recognise her as belonging to their master as well.

She stoked fires into the great pits and avoided the rooms with closed doors for fear of the dark corners and her own imagination. The library had been small compared to the grand room in Robichaux, but in time Mallory found what she needed. She only spared several moments in the day to panic about Michael finding her before she left. Or worse… that he wouldn’t.

But she couldn’t stall any longer, could only hope that whatever the coin represented would hopefully link the two of them together with the spell’s magic, and if not… Well at least he had something to remember her by.

Mallory descended into the bath, letting her black dress billow and pool around her until it soaked through and sank as well. For too long she sat there and considered all that she was about to do, what she was leaving behind.

With the coin pressed to her breast and a clear mind, Mallory said the words and fell beneath the water.

_‘Tempus Infinitum.’_

X

_Before…_

It becomes another unspoken thing between them, forbidden by their own strong emotions but forever hovering overhead to break them apart.

Despite his words he makes no plans to take her to Hawthorne and delays any action she insists upon. It’s not done out of spite, but protectiveness and fear. Given Michael’s reaction to her proposition Mallory decides to bide her time anyway. She's found with knowing him that it’s about picking the right moment. And so when that sharp pain begins in his ribs to descend Mallory knows this is her opportunity. He must know it too.

Michael’s bidding her goodbye on the stairs to the garden before he vanishes and there’s something at the tip of his tongue that he doesn’t want to say. Mallory has always been a patient person so she waits him out, holding his red-gloved hands while he struggles.

“Will you be okay without me?” He eventually bites out.

Mallory nods.

“I mean… you won’t…”

“I’ll still be here. I’ll wait for you.” The lie brings tears to her eyes but she keeps herself composed.

Michael’s face is unreadable and she wonders if he can see right through her. He presses a long kiss to her forehead and holds her tightly. Unbeknownst to him, Mallory takes one of her silver coins and slips it into his pocket.

“I’ll be home soon.” He promises and dissipates before her.

Upstairs, she fetches a hidden bag already packed and changes into her good boots. She removes her jewelled flower crown, a gift fashioned from the forges in hell and sets it by the bed. She ties her hair up to fit the air-filtering mask over her face.

Across the garden she walks through muddied trenches and over dead, rotting plants that she has long ago given up trying to resurrect. Trying to keep them alive had only made her depression worse and so she had let them all die. She doesn’t look down as she steps through the remains.

Mallory bridles one of his deathless horses, avoiding contact with the tumours even with gloves on. Having only had a vague idea as to the location of the warlock’s school, the night before while her lover had been sleeping Mallory had snuck away to perform a divination spell using Michael’s drawing parchment. Now armed with directions and intuition, she hopes it’s enough to get her where she needs to go.

Mallory leaves Robichaux through the mist and fog and does not look back. There’s nothing left for her there now.

X

Michael prepares a throne for his queen, and orders another fearsome crown to be made.

He wants a wreath of frosted flowers first, then thorns and gilded leaves, then malicious looking icicles until he throws each and every creation away. Nothing would fit his angel because she’s not here and a great part of him fears that she never will be there to reign at his side.

The insidious idea to abandon the upper world has taken seed in his mind and now he can’t get rid of it. Can’t deny that it is truly too much of a lost cause. That he has failed his father again.

But a quiet voice in his mind that he is letting speak more often now tells him, _is this really what he wanted? What I wanted?_

One particularly desperate day he seeks Ms Mead out and finds her personal hell, trapped in a Catholic choir rehearsal. The bags around her eyes tells all but she smiles wanly when she sees him.

“This isn’t what I imagined.” She muses.

“I think that’s the point.”

She reaches a matronly hand up to his hair and fusses with the way it falls, tutting that he needs a haircut, or at least a ponytail.

“I could have taught you how to do a nice braid, y’know.”

“I’m not here for that.”

“Then why are you here? Not that I’m ungrateful for a distraction.” Their eyes cast back to the line of perfect, all-American children dressed in choir robes that wait in suspended animation for a return to their scripted existence.

“This plan… for a better world.” He begins. “The apocalypse, and what followed after…”

“Yes?”

“How do you know that this is what… what he wanted?”

“It’s all in the bible, dear.”

Michael looks down to the pews at the books neatly situated in the rows.

“The other one.” Ms Mead says exasperated.

“I remember the readings.” He thinks back to his nightly Satanic prayers. “What I’m trying to ask is, how does anyone really know?”

To this she just blinks so he blunders on.

“What if this wasn’t his plan at all?”

“It came from somewhere.” She says a little unsurely.

“From the humans. The Satanists themselves dreaming of a grander design. What if he’s not really here?”

“This is blaspheme, Michael.”

“How can it be when I’m the only one to hear it? This may be hell, but as far as I see… I’m the only devil here.”

Afterwards Ms Mead becomes so distraught at the upheaval of her beliefs, reduced to vague, justifying mutterings and unable to look her surrogate son in the eye. Michael simply leaves her to her hell without another word, certain someday that if he needed to he could come back.

Michael spends more of his time walking the halls, counting down the hours until he has paid his due and is able to return to the living world. He contemplates arguments to bring Mallory down to him where they can live here comfortably in the realm he creates.

To kill more time he visits Ariel but learns nothing new. Together they sit in the misery of an all-female class of witches who sneer and jibe at the warlock, who sits with his mouth stitched, unable to argue on any of the subjects he would claim to be an expert at.

Sometimes Michael cuts his mouth and lets Ariel ramble but the torture has almost driven him completely mad. Sometimes he kills him again, just for the hell of it.

But mostly, he just waits and works at finding things that Mallory would like. New fashions from a French designer’s hell, first editions of her favourite novels from the authors themselves, trapped in some truly imaginative hells. Plants from across the world for a grand new garden he works hard to perfect, pleased when the life takes in the soil. He finds fire-activated seeds for a Eucalyptus from Australia that he thinks she would particularly appreciate for its distinction.

On his fifth day he finds a curious coin in his pocket that he takes to turning while he thinks. There’s something familiar about it that tells him not to let go of it. Sometimes it grows so cold it burns his hand. And after enough time has passed, a week as Mallory and himself had agreed, Michael wastes no more to return to Robichaux. Back at last, before he takes another step he knows that it is empty and he is too late.

He transmutes to Hawthorne, praying to find his angel before all is lost.

X

Through the descending veil she sees a face above her, a face that calls her name. It has a beautiful, golden halo and the figure reaches for her, breaking through and attempting to pull her back.

_‘No!’_ Mallory screams, lungs filling with black water. And in her panic she lashes her free hand out and takes hold of that long, golden hair and pulls it towards her, dragging Michael down into the void with her.

 


	25. Chapter 25

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **we're boarding the pain train again folks**
> 
> **entering back into the fray around chap 13/14 for reference**
> 
> ****thanks to shieroello29 for betaing xx ********

When Mallory wakes after being thrown violently back into her body, she is home. Robichaux towers around her with its grand, high ceilings and endless white walls. There’s no trace of dust or ash and the only ghosts that remain are the ones in her head. She finds herself in her room where she stumbles into the window looking down at the garden. The very same place where she would die unless she changes the course of their fate. It’s hard to judge the time immediately but the day is bright and warm and her room is still her own. Tears spring to her eyes as she touches her potted plants, lovely and so, so green. Running reverent hands over her things, having missed so much but only letting herself feel it now that it is back within her reach.

There’s one thing missing though, one big important thing that has her joyful emotions dampening. Mallory rushes out the door into the corridor and sees Michael at the end, in much the same state of disorientation. Recognition cuts across his face when he sees her and although he is younger again, floppy-haired and dressed in his casual clothes, Mallory knows immediately he remembers everything.

When he starts towards Mallory her heart starts beating like a jackrabbit’s, and she feels that old apprehension he seems to always be capable of stirring in her. She holds fast though, willing herself not to turn and flee, not to be cowardly, and to accept the consequences of her actions.

“What the fuck did you do?” He hisses, absolutely livid.

That is all it takes for her bravery to desert her before she turns and runs down the corridor, taking the stairs at a terrifying pace but desperate to just get away for a moment, to stay in this dream. If only she could find Cordelia, then she could be certain that this had been the right decision. She passes students on the stairs that look from her harried appearance to the devil chasing at her heels and they recoil in alarm.

It’s when she comes face to face with Lila passing through the living room that the world stops dead. The horror on Mallory’s face must frighten the girl because she takes an instinctive step back and looks over Mallory’s shoulder at the boy behind her. Michael had also stopped a few paces away, clearly as stunned as she is at the appearance of this living ghost.

“Are you okay?” The girl asks politely. She had been just moving between classes, arms laden down with textbooks and a pen balanced between her fingers when this frightened witch had halted before her. Mallory still can’t speak, torn between embracing the girl and backing away in shock. But if she moves she will run into Michael and right now he’s caught in the same inertia.

“Sorry.” Mallory eventually gasps, stepping around Lila and continuing past as if the interaction wasn’t purely bizarre. It gives her a head start to get straight to Cordelia’s office where she finds the Supreme. Slamming and locking the door behind her and startling the older witch who had been sitting at her desk doing paperwork. Mallory nearly collapses on the floor in relief at the sight of her.

X

Michael does eventually catch Mallory, taking her elbow before they walk into the dining room for dinner. He’s lost the furious edge but he’s still very upset when he mutters lowly into her ear.

“We need to talk.”

“Later.” Mallory says beneath her breath as they take their seats. It’s hard to fall back into these old patterns, like following a rehearsed script as they sit down to make small talk with their classmates and friends. It still feels like a dream to her, to be sitting beside Coco with Zoe and Queenie across from her. More than once Mallory takes the skin of her arm and twists it hard, trying to reorient herself back into the present. Particularly when she has flashing images of the house as she knew it in the other world, hollowed out and coated in an ash they could never quite clean away, shattered windows and wrecked furniture. All she wants to do is embrace her friends and cry in relief, but their time travel is too hard to explain without creating confusion and alarm that Mallory is determined to ease them through. She had haltingly explained to Cordelia that she had had a terrifying glimpse of the future and that they would need to immediately work on warding the house against possession spells. It was all she could say without coming off as completely crazy. And having to readjust to their lives after having lived another for quite some time was scary enough.

Michael is finding it even harder to pretend normal. He fidgets nervously when Cordelia tries to catch his eye and avoids everyday questions he should have been able to answer with a tight smile. The other girls must put it down to his moodiness, a trait he never quite grew out of, but he is clearly overwhelmed with the situation. He and Mallory endure the normality until close to the end when it seems he might burst into anxious tears. Mallory catches the way he swallows reflexively, running his hands through his hair and fidgeting with his sleeve cuffs under the table.

She slowly reaches over and takes his hand, undeterred when he flinches away at first before allowing her fingers to curl over his. It seems this is the anchor Michael needs despite his anger with her and he composes himself to make it through the rest of dinner.

Afterwards, Mallory is bought more time by Cordelia requesting Michael’s help with applying new wards which he guiltily acquiesces to. He knows that the magic is needed to protect the students from the possession spell that resulted in him having killed Lila in a future that hopefully would never come to be. But Mallory waits up for him, leaving her bedroom door balanced on the lock, an old sign between them indicating entry was permitted for their secret trysts.

She can’t quite keep it all straight in her mind. It’s confusing to her to have lived another timeline and be able to remember it, from Lila’s funeral to Cordelia’s passing and her own violent death. Mallory’s afraid to speak to her friends in fear of slipping up and letting them know she’s changed somehow. Suddenly, all she wants is to talk to Michael because he is the only one who knows what they have both been through.

But in their other life she had lied to his face, telling him that she would not leave and then did so anyway. She wonders now if she had completed the spell in time, if he had not returned, would that version of Michael still be there alone? Ruling over nothing but his broken kingdom and then condemned to keep hell for eternity? It sends chills down her spine and the fate of it all weighs heavy on her shoulders. Mallory is halfway out the bedroom door dressed only in her nightgown and determined to track him down and explain herself when she finds him at the top of the stairs. Michael holds onto the banister looking down at the hallway, slumped over and defeated.

Whatever she wanted to say to him suddenly disappears from her mind and all she can do is hold him, wrapping her arms around him from behind and tucking her face beneath his shoulder blade. For long moments they stay like that, just breathing together before he eventually takes his hands from the railing and places them over her arms with a sigh.

“Let’s go to bed.” She murmurs into the softness of his jacket. He straightens under her hold as if waking from whatever peaceful spell had cast over the two of them.

“Did you tell Cordelia?” He asks.

“… Not exactly.” When she doesn’t elaborate he turns and lets her arms fall away.

“You were going to leave without me.”

“I didn’t know how it would work.”

“Oh, that’s even better.”

“Please, can we just…” His eyes narrow and Mallory hates the pleading tone in her voice. “Can we talk about this?”

“No.” He pushes away from the stairs and starts to walk away.

“Michael, please! Let me explain…” But he keeps walking further away, head bowed and shoulders sagging and she is too weak to follow.

Mallory stands there in the cold night air trying not to cry before going back to her empty room. Alone, it suddenly hits her hard; everything that she did to get back here, what she may have sacrificed. The dissonance of being relieved and guilty bubbles up and overflows in wretched sobs that echo from where she curls up on the floor against the bed. Dreadful questions rise in her mind that she can’t ward off. Was it really better to have brought Michael back, memories and all? Or should she have just been content to have him young and unknowing what he would be capable of. All she wants to do is talk to him, explain what had happened, how she had left the coin with him in the hope that it would tie them together if he hadn’t made it in time. It’s agony knowing their secret and shouldering it alone.

She doesn’t know how she can make this better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **not totally happy with this chapter so let me know if you liked it to validate my needy writer's soul**
> 
> **cue next chapter Mallory trying to apologize. she's certainly not going to nail a mouse to his door though lol ******


	26. Chapter 26

Mallory had always known he was handsome. From the moment she saw him in the afternoon light as she came in from the garden on his first day, though back then he had seemed overly arrogant and even contemptuous. To cope with it, she had developed in herself a knee-jerk reaction to his handsome appearance to learn to despise it. Casting hateful eyes over the planes of his face and glaring at the back of his head, secretly marvelling at the wonder of how he always got his hair to sit right.

Nowadays of course she sees him in a different way. Tainted by her love for him and having known his character far deeper than the skin, his beauty is something she can simply appreciate. Michael had lost his marvellous wonder, admired from afar like a marble statue in a museum, and he had become flesh and blood to her. Until now, when she once again becomes a passive observer to the warlock student. The anomaly of Robichaux. Her angry lover.

His beauty captivates her though she tries not to stare too obviously from across the classroom. She feels like a lovesick teenager, hurting ever more so because she once knew what his heartbeat sounded like under her ear, the feel of the sharp wings of his cheekbones, the texture of his silky hair and the touch of all the other lovely, intimate parts of him.  A statue he has become again, Adonis-like, beautiful and unattainable.

Michael’s brow creases as he concentrates on the lecture being given and puts remarkable effort into ignoring Mallory. It’s been some days now since they ‘returned’, and not a word spoken between them after their short but magnificent row.

It’s not that she hasn’t made an effort, but she doesn’t want to push him when he is not yet ready to speak to her. Barely even able to look her way because he has never been good at hiding his emotions from Mallory, and he doesn’t want her to know how injured he really is. That she had lied to him. That she would have abandoned him for this world instead.

And for the most part Mallory doesn’t regret it, but she does regret hurting him.

She does rejoice in having her garden back, overwhelmed with relief when the plants blossom naturally under her loving touch, and reward her with their beauty and functionality. For a full six hours the day after she comes back she potters around until she is sunburnt. The girls rib her for it, laughing at her negligence for sunscreen when she is usually such a stickler.

It’s during this time that she finds what she needs to say in the florals. A quiet apology suitable for the two of them, effective yet silent. She consults the library to learn the language of flowers, and then carefully ties together a modest bouquet of violet hyacinths to prop in the handle of his bedroom door when the evening is quiet.

It makes her heart beat stupidly fast, and afterwards she kicks herself wondering if she should have left a note to explain. Words seem so inadequate for the hurt he must be feeling.

But the next morning the bouquet is vanished and he meets her eyes for a moment over the table at breakfast and she feels triumphant.

It’s a step in the right direction. Mallory pores over the borrowed book and creates another spray of flowers for the next night – pink carnations. There’s plenty of variety in her garden and when she runs out of apologies, she’ll send all her love.

X

It’s Michael who tells Cordelia the truth of it all. One hazy afternoon about a week after Mallory yanked him into the bathtub and back through time. He hasn’t even tried to pretend he is okay and the sudden downturn of his mood throws the witches off. They’re not so naïve as to imagine its simple girlfriend trouble, given the way Mallory’s been quietly doting on him, sending favours and giving him the space he needs. Cordelia catches on quickly.

It feels a bit like he’s had the floor disappear beneath him though, for a life he lived to have been undone in a few quick moments and send him hurtling back to a time he can’t help but still consider as the past. It’s the bitterness of it that wounds his soul, that Mallory would not chance to stay with him. Together they would have made marvellous rulers of hell, they could have reigned eternally and dared even to be content. It’s a remarkable loss to him, and yet at the same time he kicks himself for feeling ungrateful for this second chance.

Dust stirs through the space of the attic as he idly uncovers an old spell table, metal wrought and rusting. The iron smell reminding him viscerally of hell.

“Nevermind that.” Cordelia says, flicking the dust covering back towards him. “Help me finish these off.”

She refers to the sigils she paints on the walls. Protection symbols that have always been there but frequently need renewing. And given Mallory’s insistence on warning the Supreme as soon as they returned it had sent Cordelia into a bit of a frenzy. Michael’s magic is still the most powerful with only her own to rival it, and he’s willing to be distracted if only to drown out the white noise in his head. So when the words trip over his tongue, brush hovering mid-stroke above a pentagram on the attic wall, it surprises the both of them.

“I killed Lila.”

Cordelia blinks at him waiting for an explanation to this strange outburst.

“That’s how Mallory knew about the possession spells. It’s how the warlocks got in. Before, when it was…” He sets the brush back in the bowl of blood and herbs. “Different.”

Stunned and beyond comprehension, Cordelia sets down her own things, coming over to him, sensing he would elaborate.

“What are you talking about, Michael? She picks up his brush and resumes his work, letting the absence of eye contact prompt him further.

“You know the spell _tempus infinitum_.”

This makes her fumble and she looks over to the boy.

“Yes. It’s a sort of myth in witchcraft.”

“We used it. Mallory and I. We’re not from this time. That’s how we know things that will happen.”

“What are you saying?” Cordelia finishes the sigil, looking increasingly disturbed but remaining patient with him. “You’ve come from the future? How far?”

“Can I show you?” He holds out his hands to her.

When Cordelia takes them, he gives her a barrage of images and emotions. Reeling at having to show her own death, then her students and then the world.

At the end of the visions she stumbles back and shakes her hands like they sting.

“Oh god…” She murmurs in horror, knowing what she saw and by the earnestness on his face that this was true. “Oh Michael, what have you done?”

“Nothing yet.” He says with a wry little smile. “But now you know what I’m capable of.”

“Oh Misty too. Oh no…” Cordelia presses her hands to her distressed face.

“You ought to kick me out. Send me away.” Michael says hollowly. “Hell, you should kill me and put me out of my misery. I’ve brought you nothing but pain and the worst is yet to come.”

Cordelia had been pacing agitatedly and scrunching handfuls of her hair but stops when he says this.

“I would never do that to you.”

“You should.” His eyes overflow with tears. “I was born evil. I’ll hurt everyone I love.”

“Michael, no.” She folds his tall form into her and holds him as he cries. Relieved to let go of his protective numbness that had been softening the brightness of the world. “There’s humanity in you. You’re good. You can be good.”

“I’m not worth it, Miss Cordelia. You shouldn’t have tried to keep me.”

“Of course I should have.” She says. “You’re one of us and _nothing_ will change that.” She holds him tightly, stroking his hair in that tender, maternal way he savours. “What you showed me is a possibility, nothing more. If you’ve returned to this time, then we can change it. We’ll make our own future.”

Michael hiccups and steps back, letting Cordelia tug his pocket handkerchief free and hand it to him. She smiles at him and he remembers how pale she looked before she died. It hits him hard with how much he really did miss her. The clarity of Mallory’s longing comes to Michael suddenly and now he understands why she did what she did, he’d give up just about anything for his family too.

“Do not lose all hope here.” Cordelia strokes her thumbs over his cheekbones to catch the last stray tears and he smiles weakly and nods. “Thank you. For telling me.”

X

Three days later he has come to expect the bouquets, taking them from where Mallory sets them neatly in the handle of his door and placing them in a vase of water by his bedside. The vibrant colours give his room life and he’s absurdly fond of them, only disposing of them when the dropped petals create too much mess.

So that night when Michael retires to bed he’s startled at the absence before he realises Mallory stands at the end of the darkened hall, looking out the window and bathed in pale moonlight. It glances off her flower crown, cheap, garish things compared to the queenly tiaras he created for her, but all the more lovely for being hers alone. The sight of her makes him feel young again for the first time, and the weighty burdens that had become a part of his being lessen and fall away, melting like frost.

Mallory turns to him and smiles gently, taken aback once again by his unnatural beauty. He wears that uneasy little half-smile that is his only disguise to how he feels, but he meets her eyes well enough and approaches slowly.

 In her hands is the bouquet he had been expecting. Though this one is singular, and easy enough to interpret.

Bold red, her favourite. The petals curl together in their gorgeous patterns, symbolic and ancient and timeless. She has carefully sheared the thorns off the roses so that when she hands them to him he feels no pain.

“Thank you.” Michael says as he takes them. Manners had been hammered into him by Ms Mead and he will not forget them anytime soon. Especially when it makes Mallory’s face brighten so wonderfully to see he is pleased with them.

But her smile drops away as the silence extends again. He traces his fingers over the delicate, fragrant petals and she dares to step closer.

“I’m sorry.” She whispers. “For everything.”

Michael swallows and nods.

“I know.”

Another step and the roses brush against her collarbone and he is helpless to look up and meet her lovely brown eyes.

“Do you think you could forgive me?”

Memories flash in the space of the sentence and he knows the answer before she even asks. He thinks of her hand, covered in dirt and reluctant to meet his own outstretched. The smooth nape of her neck in their alchemy classes. The smell of the textbooks as they studied together. The look on her face when she comes. The taste of her. The way her whole face collapses when she cries and the sharpness of her teeth when she grins. Blood curving across her cheek, spilling from her neck. Brushing dirt from her knees in the garden. Dust that dances in the morning light from their bed. Brown hair disappearing beneath the bath water. Pale hands that reach up and take hold of him and never let go.

Michael leans forward over the flowers and kisses Mallory gently, whispering against her lips.

“I already have.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **FEAR NOT I'm not done yet. I still have those pesky warlock/satanists to wrap up AGAIN**
> 
> **but y'all asked for sappy and tbh I missed the cute too**
> 
> **for reference, purple hyacinths and pink carnations are good for apologies (according to the internet) and red roses of course for love. also credit to shieroello29 for helping me develop the idea and being my wonderful beta again**
> 
> **thank you as always for reading xx ******


	27. Chapter 27

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **oh damn I'm back ******

Mallory’s hand slides through the blood on the floor and comes away slick. It’s still warm and starting to tack to her skin until she rises and lets the air of the former warlock academy reach it. When she clenches her fist the mess slips down her wrists and seeps into the fabric of her sleeve.

In the firelight it all looks black, like ichor or tar or some otherworldly thing she can pretend is not the life force of a human being. There’s a trail of sorts, of body parts and stains on the floor that guide her feet to her love.

Mallory is not the same frightened girl she once was. Her heart beats faster for a different reason.

X

It does get easier to hide their secret from the others. It’s easy because the best thing to do is to pretend it never happened, that it was all some bad dream. For Mallory at least, it’s easier to cope with the guilt and the headache of it.

That being said, the witches are not unintelligent. Some catastrophic shift in Mallory’s being had occurred and in a house full of occultists it cannot be missed. Thankfully, they’re all just as skilled in turning a blind eye when it counts.

And then there’s Coco, tactless and blunt as a bull in a china shop. Madison is on the brink of throwing a fit when Mallory sometimes grows miserable and brings her the wrong dress when helping her get ready for a night out, then Coco snaps into action.

“Oh my god, between you and the brooding antichrist himself, Mallory, I swear to god…”

“Shut the fuck up, Madi.” Coco reacts from across the room, “they’ve been through a lot.”

And while the girls are busy bickering with each other they miss the look of surprise on Mallory’s face. They don’t push at her though, and Mallory is happy to feign ignorance before stepping in to ease the little dispute. The melancholy still permeates her sometimes, pushing down around everything until the world is just a bit hazier, dimmer and blurred at the edges. It makes her slow and apathetic and it doesn’t scare her anymore but it’s still painful.

“Mallory, pull yourself together girl!” Queenie snaps when Mallory nearly messes up her potion in class. It’s well deserved, as she had been about to mix together two ingredients that might have melted their fingertips if she spilt it. Mallory from before might have shrunk back in shame when chastised. Now though, she feels strangely thankful for her friend’s impatience with her mood. It shakes the apathy loose a little, scrubbing over her mind until some feeling comes spilling out, even if it is just regret.

On the other end of the spectrum, Mallory receives a gentle sort of kindness from Kyle. They develop a strange kinship, two people brought back to life for someone else’s love and working together to accept it. They don’t talk about it and that is what makes it good. Often they just walk together quietly and it’s exactly what they need, taking to the streets or wandering the expansive cemeteries of New Orleans.

Michael though is a whole other story. Since he kissed her things hadn’t been the same. It was better, being able to slip in beside him at night again and be held close. Sneaking kisses between classes like they were secret lovers again. Treating each other gently and being loved wonderfully.

But he’s unsettled, something shivering in his soul like a low flame and occasionally Mallory will stir at night to find him wide awake and lost in thought.

“There’s something I need to do.” He tells her cryptically when she drapes herself against his back and asks if he is alright. He doesn’t elaborate and eventually kisses the worry off her face until she’s forgotten everything except the taste of him.

And then one day he’s gone again and fear crashes through her body. He’s left a note assuring he will be back soon but she crumples it in her anxiety, fists shaking in betrayal and irrational anger.

_How dare he leave her again._

It’s hypocritical given her own past choices, but it irks her, like it may be a petty revenge. But it’s not hard to guess where he might have gone and for once she doesn’t hesitate to follow.

X

Mallory finds him standing over the last of the warlocks, bloodied to the elbow of his fine, black suit and smearing more blood across his face when he tries to swipe stray droplets off his cheek.

“Mallory.” He greets her, unsurprised. He looks weary and the anger drains from her body as he steps closer, shoes sticking in the blood. Michael exhales a grateful sigh as she tugs the jacket from his shoulders and reaches up to kiss him. He pulls her to him so tightly she’s sure her ribs creak but she feels relieved, breathing hard and anxiously until he takes her blindly to the bed in the corner and guides her down.

“Why did you come here?” He asks between kisses.

“I was worried.” Mallory cages him in between her knees and presses her heels to his ass, closer until she can feel him.

“I didn’t want you to see this.” He murmurs to the shell of her ear. She’s tainted now, marked over with red handprints, dress ruined and skin stained. He reaches beneath her dress to clasp her hips and her skin pebbles from the strange feeling of the blood. In her peripheral vision all she can see is red and her brain thinks _danger_ but her body knows she is safe. Mallory tugs her panties down her thighs and when she closes her eyes the dissonance fades away. She’s reduced down to a pooling of want. Michael’s belt clinks in her ears and she smiles.

“Are you alright?” He asks, panting a little and concerned by her closed eyes. Mallory nods, blinking them open again and looking up at him.

“Do you want this?” The smooth head of his cock parts her folds and she whimpers in anticipation.

“Yes.” She gasps, spreading her legs wider and feeling herself grow wetter as he teases her.

He slides home and Mallory groans a bit as she adjusts, letting his pelvis inch all the way to be flush with hers. She’s uncomfortable still bound up in her dress and feeling frantic but tempered by the soothing circles he rubs onto her hips.

“Aren’t you afraid?”

“Of what?” Mallory asks confused, breathing in a long, slow inhale while shifting her hips and clenching down deliciously.

“This. Me.” She meets his wide eyes and holds them there for a moment, stilling. “Isn’t this _disgusting_? Appalling? Aren’t you horrified by what I can do?”

“No.” They are surrounded by acres of bodies, dismembered and torn apart viciously until the blood made rivers of the halls. The antichrist, capable of ending the world over again, hovering over her and powerful enough to eviscerate her in a second. Pressing his victim’s blood onto her body and looking at her like he wants to consume her whole. “No.” She repeats and means it, wrapping her hands around his biceps and baring her throat.

Michael snaps his hips and a moan stutters out of her, stoking that flame that calls for more depth, more pressure. He delivers with another roll of his hips before he presses down closer again and whispers viciously.

“I did this for you.” A strangled noise catches in her throat, punctuated by another thrust and a lick to her neck. “I killed them for you.”

“Michael…” She yelps, taking his tongue into her mouth when it edges over her lips. Parting from her with a soft, wet noise so he can whisper again.

“So you would be safe.” The softness of this statement catches her off-guard, strangely vulnerable compared to the heat of his voice before and it rattles something loose inside her. Something that makes her melt, arch and swear. Taking the sudden, punishing pace, gratefully accepting the touch of his thumb to her clit until the air seizes in her lungs and her body with it.

He holds her steady, grounding himself with a hand to her shoulder and shuddering through her aftershocks. Pumping shallowly as she grinds down instinctively, her body trying to fight the overwhelming sensations until he moans low and follows, shaking above her.

Michael’s weight collapses over her and awareness comes back to her slowly. Between them is a wet mess, come slipping out of her and the blood drying on her body. It’s not overly pleasant, but she’s comforted by the warmth of him and she doesn’t have energy to move.

“Why aren’t you angry?” He asks, pulling away and rolling to the side so Mallory might not see the shine in his eyes.

“About this?” She asks when she gets her breath back, indicating the massacre. “This… this is…” Words fail her. A part of her is desensitised to the violence from what she’s seen before. Mallory knew he was capable of this and worse, and the part of her that should be recoiling is silent, gone. “This is you.”

“What do you mean?”

Mallory sits up, debauched and mussed to right her crown where it digs into her scalp. Michael’s glass blue eyes follow her movements and he soothes a hand down her leg. She leans over him, planting her palm by his head, thumb dragging through the blood on his jaw.

“This is your world. I accept that now. It’s a part of who you are.”

Michael swallows, moved. A gentle flush working its way off his cheeks, he pulls her closer and she dips a kiss down to his forehead.

“I don’t like it, but I will have you anyway.” She confesses.

“There’s darkness in you, Mallory.” Michael says, taking her hand. “I think you’re made for my world.”

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **so sorry for the huge hiatus with no warning, my life kind of imploded and I moved 1500km away but I'm still alive so hey, small blessings**
> 
> **hope y'all appreciated this smuttiness as my apology**
> 
> **I'm gonna wrap this fic up soon bc it feels like it's coming to a natural end**
> 
> **But I do have oneshots planned, some related, some AU**
> 
> **Thank you for reading xx ******


	28. Chapter 28

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **bless you all for making it this far, some last minute angst JUST BECAUSE**
> 
> **credit to my wonderful beta shieroello29 ******

Michael startles awake one night, an agonising pain ripping through his chest.

_Go back. Go back. Go back._

He claws at the sheets, rousing Mallory beside him who sits up in a daze. His angel takes one look at him before snapping to attention, holding his shoulders down and whispering.

“It’s okay. It’s okay, you’re safe. Be calm.”

The last word is interwoven with her own gentle magic and it curls gently around his soul until the tremors disappear. He breathes deeply and rhythmically through the aftershocks of pain, immediately drained of the energy he’d been conserving asleep. Michael presses his head tiredly to Mallory’s lap.

“Sorry.” He says, trying to regain his breath.

“We’ll find a way to stop it.” She soothes, stroking his hair with her own shaking hands. “I won’t let him take you from me again.”

Mallory says much of the same thing every night when it happens and while she speaks with the same confidence, time is wearing away Michael’s faith in the sentiment. That deadly hook that draws him down into the underworld has followed him through time. It seems not even the son cannot outrun the devil.

Eventually Mallory lets him up and some nights they go straight back to sleep, or he rolls on top of her and bleeds his emotion out through her, fucking her gently, exhausted but _good_.

And then nights like these he just has to walk it off.

Mallory watches him with her big eyes shuttering with fatigue, waiting for his decision. Michael presses a kiss to her cheek.

“I’ll come back later.”

She nods and he stays with her until she settles back into the downy pillows, snuffling and turning. In ten minutes she seems to have dropped off again and Michael tears himself away from her warmth, slipping from their room.

He makes his way up to the attic, the space he’d previously been before with Cordelia to ward the house from the danger he had pre-emptively decided to wipe out. The looming threat of the warlocks was a déjà vu he did not need to relive, until he realised he didn’t necessarily _need_ to. Without consulting anyone he’d impulsively decided to leave to Hawthorne and slake his bloodthirst, consequences be damned. He would kill thousands if he could prevent his family from being hurt. So he did.

The moon lights the airy space well enough but he’s left a candelabra on the old, iron spell table for his readings. Lighting it one by one with a touch of magic and settling down to the next dusty, old tome. Most nights he looks for answers, trying to better understand what he is, how and why he got here, _tempus infinitum,_ heaven and hell, demons and angels. Sometimes it’s boring, but the unknowing bothers him immensely. It eats at him in class as he is towards the end of his studies at Robichaux and still feels very much at odds with the world and the knowledge he has yet to seek.

When morning arrives Michael’s eyes feel like bleeding but the hook lies dormant once more. It will come back to remind him of his duties in hell when he is next unsuspecting and vulnerable, but for now there is still time. Daylight breaks and bathes the room beautifully, and he is granted another day on earth with her.

X

Mallory has been losing hope, she’s just better at hiding it. She’s done her hair nicely and put her favourite flower crown on to contrast her desperate expression as she waits in Cordelia’s office. Myrtle had passed her and air-kissed her good morning on her way out the door to some fancy breakfast, promising to return with ‘ _the most glorious pastries in Louisiana_.’

It’s good to be home.

Upon Cordelia’s desk is a dead moth, out of place in the spotless room and drawing all of Mallory’s attention. Carefully she picks it up and breathes life back into it. It’s easy to use her powers now compared to the fruitless efforts before in the _other time_ , hands clawing into the toxic soil to try and pull the plants up physically if they would not grow naturally.

She shakes her head of the memories and releases the moth.

“It’s a very special gift you have, Mallory.” Cordelia says from behind her.

Mallory turns and smiles wide in response. Cordelia goes to the window and lets the moth escape outside before taking a seat at her desk.

“What can I do for you this morning?”

The last time she’d been sitting here she’d been prepared for the worst, having returned to Robichaux with Michael bearing the blood of their enemies and ready to face the consequences.

Cordelia met them at the door and they held themselves tensely, prepared for the verbal blows telling them they were nothing but murderers, disgusting animals that killed the enemy before an attack that would never come. Instead Cordelia wrapped an arm around each of them and pulled them close, blood staining her own dress and shaking. _Thank god you’re safe,_ she’d muttered into Michael’s neck. Their Supreme had not been happy when they took to her office to explain in private what he had done, disturbed even when she realised the extent of Michael’s damage. But the collective sigh of relief when it finally sunk in that they were well and truly _safe_ was perhaps worth it.

They’d also brought a gift to soften the blow - the talisman they’d pulled from Ms Mead’s corpse. The very proximity of it made Mallory feel physically ill as it drained her powers, but it’s how Cordelia can be sitting across from her now looking bright-eyed and healthy.

Mallory feels her smile fall and gets straight into it.

“I’m worried about Michael.”

“How so?”

“He’s been…” She begins, already feeling like she’s going behind his back by telling the Supreme of his troubles. “Having trouble sleeping,” she finishes lamely.

“Is that uncommon?”

“Lately, yes.” Mallory stumbles, realising how long this story really will be. “There’s something he has to do… Before… before we came _back_ , Michael made a deal.”

Cordelia straightens in her seat and her face goes from soft to serious in a moment.

“With whom?”

A beat passes and Mallory can’t even open her mouth to explain. Understanding dawns on Cordelia’s face.

“ _Oh_.”

“He had… a responsibility. To return to Hell, to keep it.”

“Shit.” She mutters quietly, taking Mallory aback. “Why would he do something so _stupid_?”

Another beat passes but this time Mallory must fill in the blank.

“For me.”

In halting, ineloquent breaks Mallory explains that Michael had made a deal to have her returned to him. And eventually the pain would grow too terrible for him to bear and he would have to disappear once more to the underworld.

“He doesn’t want to do this, but I think he has to. I don't know how to fix it.” Mallory concludes breathlessly. Cordelia is slumped back in her seat, one hand playing with the end of her hair and sightless gaze turned towards the open window.

“He will come back?”

“Yes, I suppose. When he can.”

“Maybe we shouldn’t…” Cordelia begins and Mallory’s heart seizes in her chest, expecting the worst. “Maybe we shouldn’t see this as a disadvantage.”

The younger girl blinks, stunned.

“He takes his turns between the living and the dead, it will give us valuable insight. He might not enjoy it, but until we can figure out a way to forfeit the agreement…we can make it worthwhile.”

Mallory’s silence is telling. She picks at her fingernails, the argument she wants to give burning in her throat but not powerful enough to face Cordelia’s sensible logic.

“Well?” She prompts. “What do you think, Mallory?”

“I don’t want him to go.” It’s condensed down simply, the feeling overflowing and ruining her.

“Oh darling.” Cordelia circles around the desk and kneels on the floor at the younger witch’s feet. “It will be alright, believe it and it will be. There’s no sense making this worse than it really is.”

“I know.” Mallory brushes her irrational tears away and returns the embrace. “It’s just hard to say goodbye.”

And it is, the next morning when she helps him dress and takes him down to Cordelia and Misty so they can see him off.

They’d had the most awful row the night before and Mallory regretted letting him go with such dark circles under his eyes. But she still leaned up to kiss him chastely goodbye. Michael followed her lips down, turning it into something sweeter than it need be with others watching. He smiled at her blush though, and it made it a little bit easier when in the next moment he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ***hastily gathers all my loose ends* one chapter to go you guuuuys**
> 
> **(why are these characters always crying???? are there any chapters where someone doesn't cry omfg)**
> 
> **(answer: author is secretly an emotional bitch) ******


	29. Chapter 29

Late afternoon storms plague New Orleans for much of the next month, sending Robixchaux students running into the building from their late classes in the gardens.

They all flee except for Mallory, who lets the mud pool around her knees and stick to her dress, rain streaming free across her face to ruin her makeup. Ever since she bled out in the garden in a memory that is already beginning to fade she has felt more connected than ever to the earth. In the hazy distance she looks to the apple tree, one of the oldest trees on the grounds apart from the towering oaks. It’s getting closer to their season and she is anxiously awaiting the fruit to arrive. Amongst little else, it feels like all Mallory does lately is wait.

It’s been close to a month since Michael has gone and it hasn’t gotten any easier waiting for him to return. The girls coddle her closely, balancing between treating her like she’s fragile and pretending nothing is different. It’s exhausting, but it’s not draining like she’s felt before. Mallory is not without feeling; in fact an absence at this point might be welcome. All things considered she’s doing fairly well except for the anxiety that lurks just beneath the surface of her skin, ready to rise free and shatter her carefully kept exterior if she lets it. She irks at being worried like a wife waiting for her husband to return from war. But there’s no helping it, he’s at the back of her mind always, haunting her most mundane tasks when she returns a book to the library, makes herself tea, puts her shoes on in the morning. There are scarce moments of peace while waiting for Michael to return.

Tomorrow is her last day as a student of Robichaux. Grief rises with her anxiety that she quells all the same. It’s not as though she is leaving immediately, welcomed to stay for as long as she likes, but it naturally feels like the end of a chapter in her life. Something to close and put away but perhaps always yearn for. Part of her will always be buried here in the dirt. Perhaps she will always struggle with saying goodbye.

Mallory scrubs the mascara out of her itchy eyes with the rainwater, and gives herself another ten minutes before she returns inside to continue the motions of another day.

X

In hell there is endless variety. A pin pushed into a muscular joint, weights applied to steadily crush the chest, endless high pitched sounds to deafen and instil madness. Michael’s high intelligence has him calculating the most painful part of the next torture sequence. There’s no bounds to his imagination and the bloodshed is _satisfying_ , if lonely.

He’s taken to fire lately, branding and blistering flesh, something about wanting to leave his mark he supposes. Everything somehow still feels transient in hell, the world composed of steady drifts of smoke, of thought and feeling. Snakes spill from his footprints, the sky disappears when he looks up and ghosts live in the corner of his eye. Yet the demons are at his beck and call, always willing and obedient to him.

The thought festers in his mind though, the old one from the other time, that perhaps he is all there is. Whatever devil sired him seems to be long gone now.

At times he still takes to the knife, drawing it across his skin and praying to whatever divine entity trapped him in this bargain to begin with.

_Am I alone here?_ He asks it.

_How long will this go on?_

_Will I ever be free?_

It’s naïve to expect an answer and so he does not. Cleaning himself up, redressing and taking back to the hallways.

Sometimes it is not so bad though. Often Michael seeks Ms Mead out. Depending on his mood he’s capable of making her hell mundane or unspeakably horrific. Nevertheless she always takes him in her arms and tells him she missed him.

“My dear boy.” She greets him, legs mangled and bleeding from the hellhounds he had trapped her with last week. Tearing her apart and being remade over and over and still much the same, Ms Mead is made of sterner stuff than he has ever known.

The only positive thing Michael has come to learn about his sojourns to hell were that whatever murderous impulse he was born with is always sated. But he marks his days away with a score upon a soul’s flesh, waiting for the great enigma of time to pass.

X

Mallory starts awake in her cold bed, still missing the natural warmth Michael seems to generate. Usually at night she curls up against his broad back, toes curling into his calves and counting his ribs with her fingers, feeling that ever present, marvellous beating of his heart. Sometimes she even misses his long hair, though hers is nuisance enough when she leans over him to kiss him good morning.

From her closet she takes the dress Madison helped her pick out the night before. It is long, glossy white with a modestly translucent overlay and lovely to touch. Feeling too sick to eat before the ceremony she fastens her belt tight and joins Coco in the bathroom to do their makeup together.

It’s Michael’s final day away and she expects him to be here soon. Something greatly significant weighs down the air and causes great shivers of excitement. But the ceremony comes and she wades through it with genuine smiles, accepting the rituals Myrtle bestows, breathing heady smoke from the herbs she grew herself, receiving crystalline gifts and whispered blessings. Zoe even bought a Halloween-style witches’ hat that Mallory wore with pride, accepting the laughter from her friends with happiness unparalleled.

But still she waits. Eyes glancing often to the clock in the rooms as they celebrated her graduation as a witch with the other girls of her year. Cordelia took her aside at the end of the night, handing her one last gift.

“This is for you.”

“Thank you, Miss Cordelia.” She says, testing the weight of the small package in her hand.

“Open it, please.”

Beneath the wrapping Mallory finds a book, old and untitled but filled with hand-drawn images accompanying the small, cramped text.

“It might be awful to read, but I found something you might like to see in there.” Cordelia said, flipping to a marked page.

And there in a small illustration were the two coins that Cordelia had handed to her once. In that dreamy world that was more feeling than image. The memory was dulling, losing its shine like old silver.

“I know these…” It’s more of a question as she casts her eyes up to Cordelia’s, wondering how she might have even known.

“Your time studying may be over, my dearest Mallory,” Cordelia said, tucking a strand of the girl’s hair back from her confused expression. “But you must always keep _learning_. There will always be a place for you here.”

And the way that she stressed that implied the Supreme was not talking about Robichaux alone. Mallory nodded swiftly, looking down at the notes on the ancient artefact, the _Janus Coins._

“I am incredibly proud of you.” She continued. “Of how far you’ve come, how strong you’ve grown. Your powers are extraordinary, and a gift to our coven.” She pulls an amulet from her neckline and Mallory flinches as she feels her powers quelled by its presence. The very same amulet they took from Ms Mead’s corpse. It is not painful anymore but an uncomfortable feeling nonetheless for her powers to be subdued so that she would not destroy Cordelia’s health. “You’ve given me more time, with you and Misty and all my girls. I can only try to repay you for that.”

“Of course, t-thank you as well.” Mallory stuttered out just as Cordelia turned to go. “For everything.”

She watched her blonde hair disappear amongst the crowd in the music room, distracted for a moment by Misty’s wild turns and Queenie’s laughter. Bookmarking the page with her fingertip  Mallory left the room and headed towards the stairs.

That intense feeling that haunted her all day suddenly coalesced powerfully, kicking in her chest. That familiar, earth-ending gravity that once warned her of danger when she first met Michael. Between two blinks, suddenly there he was. Standing by the banister in his long, black cloak and he turned when he heard her footsteps falter.

“Mallory.” He says, breath rushing from his body and shoulders visibly sagging in relief. She bridges the distance between them and clutches him tightly.

“Oh, I _missed_ you.” She confesses. He strokes a hand down the satin of her gown.

“Congratulations.” Michael said proudly, pulling back to kiss her forehead. “You’re a real witch now.”

Mallory responds by pinching him affectionately, making him yelp. Taking his hand she pulls him up the stairs, casting an eye over her shoulder to ensure no one had seen them and she could keep him to herself for a night. Undoubtedly, sooner than she’d like, he would have to go again, to return to hell intermittently for the rest of their lives. But for now he was hers, and he was home.

X

It is the first evening without a storm as the end of the year comes closer. The last sunlight breaks sporadically through the clouds, warming and chilling Cordelia where she stands on the veranda looking out at the garden. Misty comes to stand behind her wrapped in her shawl, she feels the fringe brushing against her hands and pulls her closer.

They watch Mallory as she prepares the soil for her next plant. Behind her Michael sets down the pot of blooming white roses next to her tools and Cordelia is reminded of the first time she saw them together in the garden. He’s ruining his good shoes and from their distance they hear Mallory chastise him that he should have worn boots. He smiles and shakes his head at her, uncaring of his expensive clothing that is being marred by the dirt.

“I think she will leave us soon.” Cordelia whispers to Misty, warming her cold hands with her own. Sometimes the gratitude she has for her health hits her fully in the little moments like these, when she feels the blood pumping strong in her body, the strength in her grip when she gets to hold Misty’s hand as tight as she likes. Protected by the small charm she wears beneath her clothing until both herself and Mallory are ready to move on and let the young witch take the mantle of Supreme.

“What makes you say that?” Misty whispers, chin hooked over her shoulder.

“Just a feeling.”

At the other end of the garden Zoe dismisses her class and the young students filter back inside. Kyle nods to Michael over the rows and they share a smile before he joins the trail following Zoe.

Mallory gestures for the next tool and Michael hands it over wordlessly, eyes on her practised hands as they expertly shift and scrunch the soil together to best accommodate the new roots. She finishes it with a small flourish of water and brushes the loose dirt from her hands.

“I think they will be just fine.” Misty breathes.

Michael unfolds himself from his crouch and holds out his hand for Mallory to take. She looks up at him with an unsure little smile and Cordelia hears her say again,

“My hands are dirty.” But Mallory holds hers out anyway and Michael clasps it tightly, pulling her up close to him.

“I don’t mind.”

 

 

 

_fin._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> **and here we are.**
> 
> **Thank you all so much for reading, especially if you made it to the end of this monster. I hope you enjoyed reading as much as I enjoyed writing these silly babies. They took up so much of my brain space. I'm really hoping I wrapped everything up!**
> 
> **I broke my Greek mythology running here for Janus, the Roman god of doorways, transitions and time. He has two faces, one that looks to the past and one to the future. You can read more here:<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janus>  
> **  
>  **There are also Janus coins but they have nothing to do with time travel as far as I know. Lesson learnt on making up your own mythology for fanfic lol**
> 
> **For those who may be interested, the title from this fic came from Nine Inch Nails' 'Sunspots' which I will link below. It could be Millory if you squint but it's just a bangin' song with a cool title that I thought would suit the themes of this story, given that sunspots in actual science are spots on the sun where light is trapped by darkness.**
> 
> **[Nine Inch Nails - Sunspots](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MWmoco8XqPA)**
> 
> **I'm still working on my Modern AU The Way Out Is Through if you need further Millory fix but I'm putting Sunspots at rest for now, even though I have left it deliberately open-ended.**
> 
> **Bring me your thoughts and I'll bring you my love xxx ******


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